Reshaping The Cookie Dough 2: 2020 Foresight
by DavidB226Morris
Summary: Angel-Slayer Inc. is still trying to determine it's goals when an ordinary man with an extraordinary power comes to them seeking their protection
1. An Evening Sun Goes Down

Reshaping the Cookie Dough 2: Twenty/Twenty Foresight A Buffy/Angel Story by David Morris  
  
Rating: PG-13 Some violence, a bad word or two.  
  
Spoilers: I think that just to be on the safe side, one must assume that anything up to 'Chosen' in Buffy and the seson 4 Finale of Angel is fair game.  
  
Summary: Angel-Slayer Inc. is having some trouble figuring out what their course of action should be when suddenly an ordinary man with an extraordinary power comes to them and begs for their protection.  
  
Author's note on relationships: First of all, perhaps I should make it clear that love is somewhat secondary to the plot in my work. Nevertheless, Buffy and Angel will no doubt be trying to sort out what exactly their relationship is and in the process so will I. AS for Cordelia and Spike... Well Cordy's going to be in her coma for some time, and I'm not sure (despite the last line of my first story) what's become of poor William. They may come into play a little later down the line but right now, they don't matter. As for the rest of the cast, there are going to be some friendships combinations that you wouldn't normally see, along with one relationship I don't think anyone will see coming. No slash, however.You have been warned  
  
Disclaimer: Does anyone actually think that somehow a humble scribe like myself would dare usurp these marvelous characters? Very well. Buffy, Xander, Willow, Faith, Giles, Angel, etc. are all the property of Mutant Enemy. However, in this story I am introducing a new character. Woe to he who dares using him without my permission.  
  
Special thanks to Sarah, my beta reader.  
  
In his long life Angel had seen many horrible things. True had been the cause of more than a few of them; but he had also seen a lot of things that he treasured. He had seen Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance. He had heard Enrico Caruso sing Mozart. He had seen Sarah Bernhardt play Camille. He had watched Sandy Koufax pitch (at a night game, naturally); and he had watched a sixteen year-old girl walk out of the light and accept her destiny.  
Many of these things he had not appreciated at the time. Being tortured with a soul that remembers every awful thing you have ever done for a hundred years pretty much guarantees that you're not going to savor the flowers that bloom in the spring. However, they had come closer to captivating him than anything else had ever managed. But one of the memories that he cherished the most had occurred almost four years ago.  
Early in his tenure in L.A., Buffy had found and brought to him the Gem of Amara, an ancient relic that gave the vampire the ability to walk out in the sun. After fighting for it, he had enjoyed his first day in the sunlight in nearly two hundred and fifty years. There were all kinds of joys that he took in, but the memory that he still held was watching the sun set over Los Angeles. The mix of colors---the oranges and reds and yellows---- was something that he had not appreciated even when he was alive. And now it seemed like some great thing that he could only begin to appreciate. Then he destroyed the ring and with it any chance of being able to see another.  
That's what he had thought then. Of course not even he could see the future, but to be perfectly honest, if someone had told him that not only would he be able to see the sunset but do so every day, he would have thought they were insane. It wouldn't have helped their credibility if they had added that he would be looking through the special windows in his office at Wolfram and Hart. Or, as it was now known by the people who worked there, Angel-Slayer Incorporated.  
Two months ago, after the epic battle with the Beast and Jasmine had finally ended, he had been so exhausted by what had happened that he had no idea what they were going to do next. When Lilah had come to him with the offer of the Los Angeles office of Wolfram and Hart, he had agreed mostly because he wanted to make the best possible choice for his son, but also because he had no idea what to do next. After fighting such a great evil, he didn't think that he could just go back to the Hyperion and waiting for customers to come through the door. Everybody had slowly been fitting in to working out of the building and trying to go back to fighting evil in their own way but they still did not been doing a great deal to figure out what direction they wanted to go in. That had probably been at least part of the motivation behind his decision to let Buffy and Giles work to set up the new Watcher's Council out of their offices.  
The next three weeks had been spent in reassembling the forces of good. When Buffy had told the rest of the Slayers that they could either go back home or stay in L.A. and fight evil, it had taken most of them two days to make up their minds. Seven of the nineteen slayers had opted to return to their homes but had agreed to keep in touch with the rest of the group via their Watchers. The rest had agreed to stay here and help clean up the city, lured by the promise of homes, a comfortable work environment and a paycheck. Giles and Wesley spent their time trying to contact most of the watchers that they knew while simultaneously preparing a testing procedure for new watchers. Most of the Slayers in California had Watchers who were still alive and they had slowly been assembling here as well. They had emptied some of the more useless areas of the building and set up training facilities.  
The rest of the Sunnydale group had worked it self into the Angel Investigation team. Robin and Faith had joined Gunn in the security department, along with four of the better slayers. Dawn and Willow had gone to work with Wesley in the magic and prophecies department. It had come as a big surprise to everyone at how quickly Dawn had picked up some of the older languages. Wesley said that she had a real flair for it. Three other slayers, including Kennedy had been enlisted by Willow to work in this particular field. Willow had said that Slayers should know this kind of stuff; Angel thought that the witch had enlisted them in order to spoon around with Kennedy. Xander along with the rest of the Slayers had joined Fred in the weapons department.  
Before joining up, Xander had joked that maybe they should change the name of the business to Slayer Relief. "We can run as the nighttime fighting, slashing, beating up demons so that the helpless can rest medicine."  
"Not bad." said Gunn. "We might have a little trouble fitting it on the business card, though."  
"You've got business cards?" said Robin skeptically. They did, though no one was quite comfortable in wondering where they had been printed.  
Willow looked at one. "What's that weird symbol on it?"  
"Nobody knows." said Wesley. Angel had recognized it from being one of the first things that Cordelia had designed after coming to work with him, but he hadn't told it to anyone. Then it had hurt too much.  
"DO we have to call the place Angel Investigations?" said Dawn. When everyone looked at her, she said: "You've got this whole operation now. Couldn't we call it something more... important?"  
Angel had expected Wes and Gunn to raise some objection. Instead both had taken intentionally long pauses. He wondered if they still held a grudge from when, in the depths of a darkness he did not think he would emerge from, he had fired them and Cordelia.  
"What name do you think would work?" said Wes.  
"How about 'A Summers Place'?" Dawn spoke with a look of innocence on her face. Everyone groaned.  
"That was so bad even I wouldn't make a joke about it." said Xander.  
"Dawn, you try anything like that again I will have to hurt you." said Buffy.  
"How about the White Lights?" said Fred.  
"I think there's some kind of copyright infringement there." went Gunn.  
"I still like Slayer Relief."  
"How about we meet you halfway?" Angel spoke suddenly. "Something like 'Angel-Slayer Incorporated?"  
There had been a long pause. Xander was the first to speak. "I think he may have something there."  
And so Angel-Slayer Inc. had been established. Angel had wanted to thank Xander for helping him come up with the name but he had never been very good at talking with the young boy, and now things seemed to be even more awkward between them.  
At first, Angel had thought that it had something to do with what happened to Xander in Sunnydale and that maybe helping get his eye fixed might help bridge the gap. That had been a series of problems in itself.  
First they had tried to get it fixed through conventional medicine, but even the best surgeons in California agreed that it had been beyond repair. One of the doctors had offered to procure one from an organ bank, but with all the vivid memories of their last problem with them two years ago, Angel said scotched that. Willow had then tried an enhancement spell. She had used a basic spell to make a glass eye have the visual problems of his normal eye. That had worked too well. It had given him sight, but there was no way to control it. In other words ,when Xander took his glass eye out, it kept working; an experiment that could have ruined his vision in his other eye. Finally, Willow used another kind of magic to give Xander's remaining eye the power to see as if he had both eyes.  
For a few days he had been more ebullient, but then he seemed to have fallen into another depression. He still fought and trained the other slayers, but he had seemed a little out of it. Normally a very talkative and funny person, he had become uncharacteristically quiet not only around Angel but also around the others. Furthermore, he had begun to spend a bit of his spare time by Cordelia's bedside. Angel thought he knew some of what he was going through, but given his relationship with Cordelia, he didn't think it would help improve his mood.  
A buzz came from the phone on his desk. "Mr. Angel." his assistant said. He had considered having the Wolfram and Hart employees just call him 'Angel' but somehow that seemed even creepier.  
'Yes.'  
'The board meeting starts in five minutes.'  
It was interesting. When he had been in charge of what he now considered the original agency, he had never considered it necessary to meet with them more then once or twice a week. Now that there were so many of them (and considering that he was no longer in charge of anything) they had needed to meet every day in order to make sure that they weren't all getting involved with anybody else's project. Even now after nearly three weeks of meetings they still were having trouble getting everything together.  
This normally wouldn't bother Angel if it were not for two things. First of all, no matter how much the current employees took his orders, he still could not escape the feeling that Wolfram and Hart was somehow still monitoring them. This was a very paranoid thought but he knew that Wesley and Giles (both of whom had their reasons for not confiding in him) suspected it as well. Besides, given everything that had happened over the last four years, a little paranoia did not seem that unwarranted.  
Second, and far more troublesome, was that they did not have any direction when it came to what to do next. He couldn't say that he had enjoyed the last two years that much, but at least he had always known what he had been fighting. Furthermore, while demon attacks were back in full force, there was no real pattern to them. He knew that Buffy was feeling at loose ends as well. She had always been worrying about the next great evil---- even when that had been him---- but now that she was 'retired', she had been feeling rather aimless. The others were so busy at their new jobs that they didn't seem to feel the same way, but they had avoided speaking about it.  
This wouldn't have bothered him so much if his time alone hadn't caused him to start thinking about matters of the heart. Four years ago, he had left Sunnydale because he had felt a love for Buffy Summers so deep that he could not be around her without feeling pain. They could not have a future together. His immortality and his curse had guaranteed that.  
Then in L.A. he had run into Cordelia, the one member of the Scoobies he had not particularly liked being around. When she had come to work for him, he had thought it very likely that he might lose his humanity attacking her. But then she had changed. Doyle died and passed on his gift to her. Suddenly, she had become vital to his work. And knowing the pain that she went through because of her vision had made him care about her for the first time.  
Over the next two years through highs and lows, Cordelia had taken on a role that he did not think would have been possible. Best friend. It was then, however, that things had become complicated. Throughout those years--- - after he fired everybody, when they had gone to Pylea, the birth of his son---- he had thought she was his rock. And then, he had thought he had fallen in love with her. Unfortunately, before he could tell her this, they had both gone on unexpected trips--- her to a higher place (at least that is what they had thought at the time), his to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Whatever opportunity they may have had disappeared that night.  
He realized that he was probably holding everybody up and decided that he would begin walking towards the board room. He still brooded though. As anyone from Angel Investigations could have told the world, he could brood anywhere anyplace.  
Now with Cordelia in a coma and Buffy working with him, he began to wonder. Had he really loved Cordelia? It had all seemed so certain and he had held to it all those nights he had spent hallucinating from hunger on the ocean floor. But as time had passed, he had wondered whether it had been case of misplaced affections. If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.  
All those years, he had cut Buffy out of his life. But he remembered the anguish that he had felt when he had learned that Buffy was dead. The joy that he had felt when he had learns of her resurrection. Seeing her after learning of this, it had taken every fiber of his being not to beg her to take him back. Soon after that, Darla's pregnancy and the birth of his son had driven thoughts of Buffy to the wayside. With Cordelia taking the role that he had never thought anyone would take---- foster mother to his child--- he thought that had added something to his feelings for her.  
The events over the past six months had been even harder to sort out. What with the arrival of the Beast and what he had witnessed when Cordelia begun her plan to bring Jasmine forth---- her sleeping with Connor, her murdering all those people, stealing his soul---- he had not had time to sort out his feelings for her. With all of the havoc that Cordelia had ended up doing, he had forced himself to put aside his emotions. When he had thought he would have to kill Cordy, whatever anguish he had been willing to take on had been set aside by his feelings of what had to be done. Now he didn't know if he would ever get a chance to figure it out. After everything that she had done, he didn't know if he had any capacity in his heart to forgive her.  
All of this seemed moot though. When he had taken the deal with Wolfram and Hart, the best medical care available that could be arranged for Cordy had been provided. But the prognosis was grim. Without any idea as to what had caused the coma, it was very difficult to provide any course of treatment. Furthermore, CAT scans of her head showed levels of brain damage that were considered lethal in normal people. The doctor (who apparently didn't know that she was part demon) said he was amazed that she was alive. Under normal circumstances, a DNR order might have been considered. The problem was she wasn't on life support. She was breathing fine and the rest of her body was functioning. The only thing wrong with her was the coma. The doctors said that barring a miracle, she would remain in this vegetative state indefinitely. It was only because Angel had seen miracles that he thought she might have a chance. SO far, it had not happened.  
He had therefore had to put his feelings for Cordelia aside in order to keep going. Adding to the confusion was what had happened when he had gone to Sunnydale last month. Seeing Buffy for the first time in two years had awakened feelings that he had thought were dead. And despite the fact that he knew she loved Spike, he knew that there was some feeling still in her heart for him.  
Right now, neither was in any shape for any kind of relationship. He knew that if he had wanted to, he could have taken advantage of her vulnerability, but that was the sort of thing Spike would have done. But he hadn't. Because all the problems that he had when he left Sunnydale were still there.  
Really? One word, shanshu. He hated that voice in his head that revealed unpleasant truths sometimes. All right, yes it was possible that he would become human again. And yes, this came pretty close to being an apocalypse, so it might be sooner rather than later; nevertheless.  
There was no 'nevertheless.' There were just possibilities that he had never thought he'd be able to consider. And there was no point on dwelling on them right now. Not with so much work to be done.  
With that he walked into the boardroom. 


	2. The Board Meeting

Chapter 2.  
  
Over the past few weeks when those in charge of Angel Slayer Inc. had begun the meeting process, their meetings had taken on the pattern if not the substance of the board meetings of McKenzie Brackman. They would discuss progress in searching for associates (Watchers and Slayers), they would talk about where they were sending their Slayers to train, and they would go over some of the more pressing evils that they had heard about. The way that they spoke about it seemed as normal as an legal problems. Indeed, if you get past the fact that one of the people sitting at the table had green skin and horns, an observer of the meeting might think he was watching 'L.A. Law: The Next Generation."  
  
"All right." Wesley spoke. In accordance with the new policy of handling things, both Angel and Giles had asked the younger ex-watcher if he would mind taking the lead in these assembles. "Since we are now all here-"  
  
"Um' Dawn piped up. Inwardly Wesley winced. He had accepted Buffy's insistence that her sister play a part in the decision making process and he had to admit that she had been doing a decent job. Nevertheless, Dawn often had the capacity to bring everything to a screeching halt with a non sequitur. "What is it, Dawn?"  
  
"I was just going to say that Xander and Kennedy aren't here."  
  
"Kennedy's in Belwood. Client called. Some kind of mess that required some muscle." said Gunn.  
  
"And Xander?" Everyone went quiet. They all knew where Xander was but nobody knew exactly how to deal with it.  
  
"I don't mean to be so narrow-" Wesley started  
  
"That's a shame cause you do it so well." Everyone let Faith's comment pass.  
  
"-but this is the third meeting in a row. I know he's upset but if he's going to work with us, we need him to be all in."  
"Wesley, calm down. We will deal with Xander. Could we get this meeting started?" Though he wasn't in charge anymore, everyone still listened to Angel.  
"All right. The last of the active Watchers have made contact with Giles earlier today. That brings the total up to sixty seven."  
"You gave the estimate as around eighty a week ago." said Willow.  
"Eight of them said that did not want to be Watchers anymore." said Giles. Nobody else asked about the other five. They did not need to go over anymore of the First's casualties.  
"Can you blame them?" said Dawn. "Their last major assignment nearly got them all killed. I'd have some doubts if I were in the right job."  
"Hey, you don't get a break from something just because people died. It's going to happen . You have to get used to it." said Gunn  
"Would you rather that we dragged them back to Los Angeles, kicking and screaming? " said Giles dryly. "We agreed that we weren't going to force people into this anymore."  
"And how exactly were you planning on recruiting new Watchers? " said Robin.  
"We've just about completed the interview process. We will begin making contact with the proper sources in a few days."  
"In the meantime ,the last of them will be on their way here." said Giles.  
"Have you finished figuring out which Watcher will go with each Slayer?" said Buffy. This had been the subject of some debate. Giles and Wesley had thought that the people who were in charge of vetting the Watchers should decide which Slayer they were assigned to. Buffy, Faith and some of the other Slayers had argued that the Slayer in question should have a say in who was responsible for training them. In the end they had decided that they would let the new Councils judgement serve. However, they had agreed that at least for a time, a Slayer would be allowed to review and decide how good a job her Watcher was doing.  
"We'll have a list ready by tomorrow. The Council will be ready to make its decision soon enough. " said Wesley.  
"You know, maybe for now you could refer to 'us' instead of the Council. It still sounds a little... weird calling everybody the Watcher's Council." said Willow.  
"All right, but we will have to get used to it. Moving on."  
"How did last nights raid in Monterrey Park go?" Gunn had heard from some of his old friends about a vampire nest there.  
"As best as we can tell, we got rid of six. Three got away. It may have been larger than that. Roxanne thought that she saw some in the alley, but when she took a closer look no one was there."  
"Speaking of Roxanne, how did she and Wendy do in combat?" asked Angel.  
"Well, they were a little sloppy- Wendy nearly had one on top of her before she killed it- but they did a pretty solid job. They each managed to dust two." Gunn was pretty good at downplaying his emotions but Wesley could sense a certain amount of pride. He had been training these girls pretty hard.  
"On only their second time out? That is promising." said Giles.  
"Again with the understatement, Giles. I didn't do that well on my second time out." said Buffy. She turned to Bianca, one of the three other slayers besides Buffy and Faith that had been allowed to attend the meeting. "Pass on the word that they're doing good and that we will have a Watcher for each of them out there soon."  
"Um, guy in charge still in the room?" said Gunn.  
"Calm down, Lando. We haven't forgotten you. " Normally Gunn didn't take well to being needled but he seemed to take it when it came from the dark-haired Slayer. Wes wondered if he was beginning to fall for this girl. Maybe that would turn into something.  
Inwardly he cursed himself for still thinking that way about Gunn's and Fred's stuck in neutral relationship. He knew that the people at Angel Investigations tended to have extraordinarily bad luck when it came to having any kind of relationship. And given what he had gone through with Lilah, he would think that he would know better than to try and get involved with somebody else again. However, after nearly a year of feeling like he was dead inside, he had finally begun to feel like he had control over his life again. And that had led him to perhaps inevitably, think about his feelings for Fred- which he had thought were stagnant but had merely appeared to have been asleep. He knew that she felt something for him, and he also knew that Gunn and Fred hadn't spent a lot of time together since they had begun working here. But every time he tried to work up the courage to talk to her, whatever progress he had seemed to have made went up in smoke. She had always seemed to exercise that kind of power over him, and there seemed no end in sight.  
"Wes? Still with us?" said Robin. Inwardly, he cursed himself for brooding like this. Sometimes, he was no better then Angel.  
"Willow, would you mind telling us about the progress we have made interpreting the Book of Galway?" When they had come into ownership of the building, they had come across a very large collection of books, scrolls, and other elements of prophecies. Either the Home Office had thought that there was no harm in letting them keep these things or they had already interpreted their meanings and had left them behind- Wesley wasn't sure which. He rather suspected it had been the latter because they were all in foreign- and often archaic- languages, but there was no sign that anybody in the offices had made any effort to translate them. They had therefore set upon the long task of figuring out which were more important and immediate, but even though most of them were skilled, it was going to be a long and painstaking process.  
Willow's report reflected this. "Wesley and I have managed to translate another page and a half. The book appears to be describing a man from a dark place who has the ability to see things that no man shall see."  
"Haven't we been down this road before?" said Buffy.  
"Buffy-"  
"You keep telling us that there are a series of prophecies involving a Slayer. Only now you have no idea which Slayer. You talk about us meeting a seer but you can't tells us where or when or even who. You keep saying that there is still a great danger coming but you can't say what or when it will strike"  
"Buffy, prophecies by their very nature are unclear. If we are to have any chance of seeing what the consequences of the battle against the First were, we need to know all we can." said Giles.  
"Giles, don't be persnickety. We've been doing this for seven years and whenever we run across an end-of -the world scenario, we always get these vague warnings and ominous portents that don't really tell us anything." said Willow.  
"And they always seem to end with me dying, which is very uncomfortable for me." said Buffy.  
"We understand your frustration, but the great truths of the world are not going to spontaneously reveal themselves to us. We have to do it piece by piece. A little patience would not hurt."  
"All right. Just before the next apocalyptic event, let's have more than a days warning. All I ask."  
"Well, since you're so perky today, perhaps you would be willing to tell us about the progress of Sunnydale VS. Mutual Fidelity?"  
Buffy smiled and everyone knew why. Ever since they had begun their work here, this had been one her biggest projects.  
About a week after the Sunnydale group had set up shop, Buffy- still concerned about money despite the new job- had decided to try and call her insurance company and try and collect on the destruction of her house and possessions. Fortunately, her mother had had the good sense to by insurance not from a Sunnydale firm (which was now so much rubble) but from a company in a neighbouring town. She had been particularly mad when the insurance company said that her policy did not cover Acts of God (a phrase that was particularly ironic considering what had caused the destruction of Sunnydale).It was then that she had realized the usefulness of having an army of evil lawyers and researchers working for you. They had uncovered that Mutual Fidelity had been one of the bigger firms and had been covering Sunnydale residents for nearly fifty years. (Perhaps it shouldn't have come as a huge surprise that Sunnydale insurance rates were among the highest in the nation.) The company had been taking a special delight in soaking the people who had tried to live their lives without realising that a Hellmouth was under their feet. They were refusing to pay claims for any of the thousands of former Sunnydale residents who had lost their homes in the 'earth tremor' that had swallowed the town.  
Feeling the same kind of furious indignation that she did whenever a great evil had come to town, Buffy had decided that she was going to everything in her power to beat this monster. She then began the laborious process of tracking down the former residents of Sunnydale in order to mobilise them in a class action lawsuit. The former Scoobies had dubbed her 'Buffy Brockovich' and had been impressed at her dedication to something that didn't involved killing demons.  
Wes was a little cooler. For one thing, most of her work so far had been talking to people on the phone, something that any young adult girl should be a pro at. For another, he wasn't wild about the former Slayer devoting so much of her time to something of this magnitude. He had already mentioned it to her, but she- as had been her habit during the brief period that he had been her Watcher- had run him ragged.  
"Angel-Slayer Incorporated was created to help those who are need." she had told him. " AT least half of Sunnydale have no homes, no jobs, and no prospects. If they aren't in need, who is?"  
"It's not that. " Wesley had responded. "You said that you were going to help the rest of us form a new Watcher's Council. I don't know how you're going to pull that off while working out whatever Julia Roberts thing you're trying to channel."  
"And I will. In case you've forgotten, I helped keep Sunnydale's monster population down, stopped the world from ending on a fairly regular basis and graduated high school. If there's one thing I'm good at, its multitasking"  
Unable to argue with that logic, he gave in. He had to admit that so far it hadn't distracted her much from her day to day business, but he didn't know what was going to happen if and when the next crisis would emerge.  
"Lorne, what news from the demon underworld?"  
"Well, gents and gals, I hate to sound like a broken record- or maybe the phrase is a CD out of it's groove- but things are pretty much same as they ever was. The flow of evil from the giant crater that used to be Sunnydale is still a constant stream."  
Angel gave off a sigh. " Lorne, I thought that you had gotten the word out among your colleagues that L.A. is under new management." The green skinned demon shifted a look of annoyance.  
"Hey, it's not my fault. It's not like these demons are guys you can walk up to and say: 'Kravtar ,old bean? How are the wife and kids? Ate em all? Well, that's dandy.'  
"I thought that was the point of reopening your club." One of the first projects that Angel had OK'd was the rebuilding and revamping of Caritas.  
"Yeah, well in order to give the appearance of being a sanctuary, it helps if incendiary devices aren't constantly being thrown down the stairs." Lorne said with a mixture of sarcasm and pain.  
"That was over a year ago."  
"Well, we can't all be Nodnarb monsters, can we?" Noting the look of blankness on everybody's face, Lorne said: "Turquoise? Fond of mildew? Attention spans of about five minutes?"  
Sensing that this was going to go nowhere, Buffy interceded. "So you have no idea if there's going to be any more fallout from the First."  
"Look, obviously I will keep my horns to the ground. But I don't think were going to get any help from the demon population for some time." Noting the looks of the others, he said: "It's a trade-off. You work with a small army of Slayers, you get a bad reaction from the undead population."  
"Thank you, Lorne. Is there any other business?" Wesley said.  
"Actually, there is one small thing." Giles seemed a little more hesitant than usual. "Normally, I wouldn't bring this up, it's very minor, but I still believe-"  
"Giles, spit it out." said Buffy.  
"It's about Andrew. Or more precisely his project." Wesley inwardly groaned. This had been a peeve of both of the former Watchers. "I know that we agreed to let him write or make some record of the battle against the First. But he really seems to be taking this to an extreme. He has constantly been borrowing materials from the records about Sunnydale, its history, my accounts on the battle against Glory and the Mayor for some reason-"  
"Giles, this sounds like he is troubling you more than anything else." said Willow.  
"You didn't seem to object when he was interviewing everybody." added Robin.  
"I know; that's not the problem. It was recently brought to my attention that he authorized the financing of a dig to the ruins of Sunnydale." There was a general reaction of amazement.  
"What? Who gave him the authority to make a decision of that magnitude?" said Angel.  
"No one. He just asked one of the executives for finance and he got it."  
"And they just did it for him?" said Gunn  
"Well, to be fair, we never told the 'other people' who worked here that his authority was any less than anybody else. Maybe it's just some bureaucratic mix-up." said Fred.  
"The point is, someone needs to tell him to tow the line." said Giles.  
"And you haven't done this because...?" The ex-librarian gave a sigh.  
"I have been a little busy; I don't have time to get bogged down with... Well, you know how it can get talking with Andrew."  
"So you're just leasing this out to us?" said Willow.  
"Well, am I wrong? Isn't he overstepping his boundaries more than a little?" No one disagreed with Giles.  
"All right." said Faith. "I got him on this kick; I should get him off it."  
"No." Everybody looked towards Fred in surprise. "That it is to say, Faith, no offence but I've seen him around you and Buffy, and whenever he's near you the guy tends to blather uncontrollably. Besides, one of us should probably take a look and see what he has written. See if he's actually going to deal with something of substance."  
There was a long pause. "Fred, are you sure you want to do this?" said Wes.  
"Yeah, I mean you've barely spoken to Andrew since he came to work here." said Willow.  
"I know I haven't associated with him much, but I think I've got an idea as to how he thinks. Besides, I'm pretty sure that I speak his language."  
"Which is?" said Giles curiously.  
"California blathering nerd." Fred spoke without any signs of shame.  
Everyone took this in. Faith finally spoke. "Hey, you want to do it, I don't have any problem." There was general approval.  
"If that's everything, we're adjourned."  
Everybody got up. Angel walked over to Willow. "Could I have a moment?" he said. The redhead nodded. The two of them walked away.  
Wes walked up to Fred. For a moment, the two walked side by side in silence.  
"Fred-" "Wesley-" They both paused and tried to regroup.  
"We shouldn't have to act like this." Wes started.  
"No, we shouldn't." said Fred.  
"We should be able to act like adults."  
"We're certainly old enough."  
"So let's just act mature."  
"Right." Wes was about to lean in and kiss her when suddenly she stopped him with a gesture.  
"Stop it."  
"I'm sorry. I just-"  
"Look, Wesley. I know that things have been awkward between us for- well I guess forever. I've been sending signals to Charles, I've been sending them to you, and neither of you have ever gotten an idea as to who I want."  
"I know, Fred but you can't stonewall us forever. You have to make a decision."  
"I have." Wesley's heart leapt to his throat.  
"And it is?"  
"Neither." Before Wesley could speak, Fred began to talk. "Look I know that this seems like I'm chickening out and maybe I am. But the truth of the matter is I don't know. I know what you offer, I know what Charles has to offer. What I don't know is what my heart wants. It's been sending me conflicting messages for the past five months, if not since the time we met, and all it has done is bring a lot of pain to all of us. So for right now, I'm going to listen to my head instead. And given what happened between Angel and Cordelia, maybe a workplace romance isn't the best thing for any of us." She stopped for breath.  
Wes took this in. "How long have you been considering this?"  
"A couple of weeks."  
"Have you told Gunn this?"  
"Two hours ago. He took it about as well as you are." Fred paused. "Look, I'm not saying 'No' to you. I'm just not saying 'Yes'. I need to figure this out. And I can't do it with both of you hovering and being snarky to each other."  
"This building is pretty big, Fred. We've been doing a pretty good job of not seeing each other."  
"Is that why you spend every meeting staring at me?" Wes was shocked; he hadn't realized that he had been that obvious. "Wesley, please. Do this for me."  
Wes thought it over.And then gave the only answer that he could. "All right."  
"OK. Look, I should really get moving. WE've both got things to do."  
"I'll... See you around." he said. As he walked off, he told himself that nothing had been decided yet; that he still had a chance to be the winner.  
SO why did he feel like he'd been socked in the gut. 


	3. Two Heartfelt Discussions

Chapter 3  
Angel approached Willow cautiously. He had always gotten along well with Willow (she had been more forgiving of him then the others when he had returned from hell) but what he wanted to discuss with her was going to strike all kinds of nerves.  
"I think I know what you want to talk to me about." The vampire relaxed a little.  
"Good, I had no idea how to, um, broach this."  
"Well, I can understand why. I mean this isn't the kind of thing that you could just come to Buffy with."  
"I wish I could but that would just open doors that I don't think either of us are emotionally prepared to go through."  
"I don't know about that. She has matured quite a bit since you last saw her. I mean, it can't have been easy to hear that she was involved with Spike."  
"No, it wasn't." Angel admitted. Then he paused for a minute. "Are you quite sure that were on the same subject?"  
"This does have to do with your relationship with Cordelia, right?" Angel was flattened.  
"How did you...?" The redhead gave a smile.  
"I figured it out when you told us the story about what had been going on. Fred and Gunn filled in some of the blanks."  
Angel took this in. "You really are as smart as everybody says you are. "  
"Thank you. Look, I won't pretend that Buffy won't be upset about. I think losing you to Cordelia was always one of her worst nightmares; but you haven't been together for a long time. She more than anyone else knows about workplace romances better than anybody."  
Angel was beginning to wonder if maybe Willow was going on one of those mental field trips that she had done often during high school. "Thanks, but you know that's not why I wanted to talk to you."  
"No, of course it isn't." The witch paused. "It's about Xander right?."  
"Yeah." The vampire sighed. "I think I know what he's going through. The pain,the sorrow of losing someone who meant so much to you."  
"It's not like that for him." Now Willow took a deep breath. "Back in Sunnydale, I once called him a demon magnet. I think that every girl he ended up going out with had some demon in her. I just don't think he ever expected that Cordelia would be one of them. Add the fact that he lost Anya, and I don't think he was mentally prepared to take anything else."  
"Cordelia isn't dead."  
"No, she's just in a coma with almost no chance of recovery. To be perfectly honest, he might have been more able to adjust if Cordelia had died. Death is a concrete concept. You may not like it, but its something that you can get your head around. To have her like this is probably worse for Xander."  
Angel pondered this for a moment. "Did you come upon this enlightened decision before or after you tried to destroy the world?" Looking at Willow, he quickly followed up with: "I'm sorry; that was a cheap shot."  
"Yes it was." She sighed. "It also happens to be the truth. The two women who he really loved are both gone. One is dead and the other is worse. Xander can't go into that kind of rage; he doesn't have the power and it's not in his nature. He's reacting to this in the only way that he can."  
"I know that. But I also know you can't stay in your room and mourn all day."  
"Yeah? How long did you grieve when Holtz took Connor from you?" When he looked at her, she said: "Now we're even."  
"All right. But there comes a point in anybody's suffering when you have to move on. For Xander's own sake, he's got to get it together. He's never going to get over this if he just spends every day at Cordelia's bedside."  
"He has been working, Angel. But you know without any really big nasty on the horizon, it's not as if he has a compelling reason to move on."  
Angel paused. "Then... Maybe he shouldn't be working here."  
"What! You're going to fire him because he's still grieving?"  
"I'm saying, maybe this isn't the healthiest environment for him. Maybe it would be better for him if he were to work away from all this."  
"Oh." Willow paused ."Have you brought any of this up with him?"  
The vampire sighed. "He's never liked talking to me under normal circumstances. If I were to tell him about what happened between me and Cordelia..."  
"He'd go nuclear."  
"You always got along better with him than anyone else. He would listen to you. Maybe you could tell him..." Angel trailed off. He couldn't think of anything involving mourning that wouldn't sound hypocritical coming from him.  
"It's been awhile since I had a talk with him anyway. Maybe I can figure out what he needs in order to get on with living normally."  
"Just get him to talk. Tell him... That there are people here he can talk to. He doesn't have to bear this all himself."  
Willow paused. "OK. " She looked at her watch. "Might as well do it now."  
"You don't have to do this right now. When you're ready..."  
"I am ready." She hesitated. "Besides it's either this, or spend the rest of evening looking through Sumerian." She gave a weak smile.  
"OK." He paused. "Thank you."  
"Hey, what are friends for?" She spoke lightly but he felt a weird buzz go through him "You OK?"  
"Sorry, it's just... been a while since anybody called me their friend."  
"Well, if it bothers you, think of us as lost souls trying to atone." He looked at her. "Hey that class in poetry has got to count for something."  
AS Willow walked off, Angel felt a rare burst of calm go through him. This, if it wasn't resolved, was at least in better hands than his. Then he felt guilty for passing the buck to her, even if she was more qualified to solve this problem than he was.  
He sighed. Would there ever come a time when a simple action didn't bring a feeling of guilt? He put that aside and prepared to get back to work.  
  
Fred didn't know why she had volunteered to talk with Andrew. In the three weeks that he had been working here, she didn't think that she had so much as exchanged words with him more than twice. What's more, based on what little she knew about him, there wasn't a great deal to suggest they had anything in common. Granted they were both somewhat geeky, but her kind of intelligence was a combination of physics and old languages, whereas his was more a mixture of science fiction along with a slight dose of magic. Apart from the fact that technically she was his boss, she didn't think she would have ever crossed paths with him.  
The only reason that she could think of that she would want to speak with him was that she had sensed that he was a real outsider. It wasn't that the other people at Angel Slayer Inc. were all extroverts, but Andrew seemed to be really off on his own tangent. She could relate to that very well: the first three months after her return from Pylea she had separated herself from the efforts of the rest of Angel Investigations attempts to ease her back into the real world. She had spent most of that time writing incomprehensible equations on the walls of her room before she had finally been able to get out of the building. She didn't think Andrew was anywhere near that bad, but she didn't think that anybody (with the surprising exception of Faith, who talked to him every few days) had really had a conversation with him since he had settled into his new job. Maybe she had felt that they had needed to know that he was not alone and maybe she could talk some sense into him.  
By now she had arrived at Andrew's office. She couldn't help but notice that the only identification that anyone was working here was a paper on which the words Andrew Grusynzki, Storyteller had been written in black marker. Everyone else in the building had their names and titles painted on the door of their offices. Granted none of them really used their offices that much, and you were more likely to find people together than alone in their offices, but the fact remained that they had their offices at least looked professional and here was the one person who really seemed to be using his office looked more like he had been put in the corner. Well, if nothing else, she could see to it that this was fixed.  
She knocked. "Andrew?" No response. "Andrew, it's Fred." Realizing he might not be able to put a name with her face, she added: "The guy with the effeminate voice?"  
There was another pause. Fred was about to knock again when the door opened. Andrew's face emerged  
"Hi. Um, sorry I took so long. It's just well, it has been a while since I had any visitors." There was an awkward silence. "What can I... Is there something I can do for you?"  
Now that he was here, Fred realized that she had no idea how to approach this. "Um, I was wondering... Well there's been a certain amount of...concern about..." She trailed off. "Could I come in?"  
Andrew looked floored. At first, Fred wondered if, like Wesley and Gunn, he was going to be another one of those men who fawned over her. Then she remembered what little she knew about him and figured he was surprised that ANY girl would voluntarily want to talk with him.  
"Sure, the place is a little messy but... Come in."  
Fred entered the room not entirely sure what she was going to see. She had heard that Andrew had decided to tell the story of the last days of Sunnydale that he was going to write it instead of making a film. Apparently because of his actions at home, the Sunnydale contingency had been relieved-Willow said he was a bad narrator. Fred wasn't sure. It had taken an hour for that group to tell part of the story. Given the right material, it could be strung out for days.  
She was not surprised to find that there were a lot of books in the room Some of them were Watchers diaries that Giles had kept in secret over the last few months. But there were others that she couldn't make a connection with. One of them was a history of the Boxer Rebellion. Another was a New York Times paper for the 1970's.And yet another was apparently written in Arabic- from what little she could read about some kind of purifying ritual.  
And on the wall were several pieces of paper with writing on them. Some had crude drawings on them; but most featured names or phrases written in black Magic Marker and several scribbles in pen. One of the clearer ones was 'Spike c. 1880' (with 'William the Bloody 'scrawled under it). To the left of that was one marked 'Drusilla c.1860'. And to the left of that was one marked 'Angel/Angelus c. 1750'. Suddenly, Fred had an idea of what he was doing though she couldn't figure out what this had to do with the First.  
"I know that it all seems kind of confusing-" Andrew began.  
"Actually, I think I see what you're doing." Fred walked towards the wall. "You're tracing vampire lineage through their sires, kind of like how genealogists trace their families back. The dates are around when they were sired." She looked to the left of Angel. "Where's Darla?"  
"I haven't gotten around to her. Most of the data about her is from the seventeenth century or earlier. A lot of those were destroyed."  
"Well, this is also interesting." Fred looked at some of the highlighted sections under 'Angel'. She knew some of the story but much of it was new to her. "But I'm not sure what any of this has to do with the battle against the First."  
"Oh right .Well, um, sit down-" he pulled up the one chair in the office. :"And I'll try to explain."  
For a moment, she was reluctant to get involved with what might be a very long story. Then she figured that she had come this far and she owed Andrew that much. She sat down. "OK, but let's try not to take forever."  
"All right. This was going to be simple- although how a project like this could be classified as simple is ludicrous- not that it would be undervaluing any of the work that we- or rather they..." Andrew was fumbling like someone who had neglected to do the studying for an oral report. "Maybe I'd better start again."  
"It's all right." Fred tried to sound soothing. It seemed to work.  
"I was going to tell in as much detail as possible the full story of the six months that Buffy, Spike, Willow and... Everyone else fought against the First. However, the problem came when I started to list what the First was and how it had become such a threat."  
"Sounds reasonable." Fred said, realizing that that particular information had been omitted from the story Buffy and the others had told.  
"I didn't have a problem describing WHAT the First was. I mean, it made its nature pretty clear to everybody. But what I could not understand was why after all the centuries and aeons spent being quiet, it had suddenly become 'real' and had determined to bring about the end of existence."  
"Well, that doesn't sound that complicated. I mean, for all the smoke and mirrors, it just had your average kill-crush-destroy mentality towards the Planet." Fred had spent the past year dealing with villains who, for all their fancy trappings, had this basic mindset.  
"Yes. But then I learned how this had come about. Apparently it happened when Willow and Xander had brought Buffy back from the dead the second time. Somehow that upset the balance between Good and Evil and gave the First its opening."  
"Oh. Oh my." Suddenly Fred understood why Willow had not wanted to take full credit for bringing all the Slayers into existence. She had helped create the situation where this was needed." That's big, but I'm not sure I see the problem."  
"Let's say that I were trying to tell the story of the battle in a linear, chronological way. Suppose I wrote: The First became a threat when Buffy was resurrected a second time. What is the obvious question that arises?" Andrew asked.  
Fred thought a moment. "Why was Buffy resurrected the first time?" Andrew pointed at her.  
"Got it. So then you have to explain the whole role of the Slayer. Not only that but you have to explain the role of her friends. And why she died the first time and it didn't take."  
Fred thought this over. "Well, I'll admit that makes it a little tougher but can't you just do a few pages and then move on?"  
"It's not that simple. There are a lot of stories connected with the Slayer and her friends. I only know a small fraction of what they went through and that would fill a novel in itself. Plus, a lot of the stories are interconnected and you need to know how to understand why."  
"I'm still not sure that I follow." Andrew paused for a moment.  
"OK, say that our situations were reversed. I wanted you to tell me about how Jasmine came into being."  
Fred thought about this. "OK. Well, Jasmine was created when Cordelia got pregnant with Connor's son..."  
"Stop. Why was Cordelia so critical to Jasmine's creation? Wasn't she one of the good guys?"  
"Well...you see.... About a year ago she became part demon because the visions that she was having were killing her...Oh yeah, I can see where we might have some problems."  
"Forget that part. Who was Connor?"  
"Well, he was Angel's son who was born two years ago when Darla was...." Fred shook her head. "Yeah, this is gonna take a lot of explanation."  
Andrew nodded. "And the story of Buffy and her friends, particularly Willow and Spike, is very intricate and requires explanations into who they were and who they eventually became. That above all is important. Spike was not the same vampire that he was five years ago. And it is important to explain why and what he did to make this happen."  
"That is a problem." Fred said. She then went over to the piece of paper that had 'Spike' written on it. "Why have you put so much effort into finding out about Spike?"  
"Well, we spent the better part of four months in the same house. I guess you could say we were both 'hostages'.  
"And you became- friends?" Somehow this seemed unlikely.  
Andrew shook his head. "God no. Guy would barely speak to me. Not that this was anything new; everyone in the house pretty much tried to forget that I existed. But in seeing him every day, I began wondering what had happened to him. I had known him pre-soul. Completely different from the vampire that I had known."  
"I know what you're talking about. Angel and Angelus were completely different individuals." Fred shuddered, thinking of the cruel jibes that Angelus had made at the expense of them all.  
"Yeah, I know. But according to the others, he began changing before he got his soul."  
Fred was intrigued; none of the others had spoken much about Spike before the last few months. "Do you have any explanation as to why?"  
"It has something to do with his relationship with Buffy, but nobody seems eager to talk much about it except Dawn. According to her, there was something compassionate about Spike even before he got his soul. She felt safe hanging out with him and he seemed to like her. And Buffy seemed very willing to entrust her to his safety on more than one occasion"  
"Before he had his soul?" Andrew nodded. "And no one has an explanation as to how this was possible?"  
Andrew paused. "I have a theory. It's more philosophical than scientific but..." he trailed off uncertainly  
"Well, it wouldn't be the strangest thing that I've heard." Fred said curiously  
"We think of the capacity to love as a human emotion. Something that is instilled in the hearts and souls of people. Well, when a person becomes a vampire, his heart is stopped and their soul is taken. They become cruel unfeeling monsters incapable of any kind of emotion at all." Andrew paused. "But what if those emotions are not gone but rather driven to a part of them that is so far down it has almost- but not completely-disappeared?"  
"How would this be possible?" Fred asked.  
Andrew shook his head. "I'm not sure. Vampires are capable of feeling love. Spike was in love with Drusilla for the better part of a century. Maybe it's only a shell of the real thing, but it's still there. What if that love Spike felt was somehow directed at Buffy? He felt this so deep he did something to get his soul back. What if it was that love more than anything else- that allowed him to become a Champion?"  
For a moment, both of them were silent pondering this. Finally Fred broke the silence. "I don't know how true any of what you said is, but that was one of the most beautiful things I 've ever heard. "  
"Thank you." said Andrew.  
"You know everybody said you were death to talk with, but this is one of the most enjoyable conversations I've had in a while."  
"Me too." Andrew looked at his watch. "It's a shame that we'll have to cut this short."  
Fred was a little surprised. "You have a deadline or something?"  
"No, I'm just going to stop for dinner and I'm sure that you have something far more important to do than to keep jabbering on with me."  
Fred looked at her watch. He was right, but for some reason she didn't want to end this talk yet. And it wasn't only because she hadn't gotten around to the reason that she had come here to talk to him. "Where were you planning on eating?"  
"Nowhere special, just the building cafeteria. Why?"  
"Well, I haven't eaten yet." Actually she had eaten about two hours ago, but she was feeling a little peckish. "And I'd kind of like hear more about your story."  
For a moment, she thought that Andrew wasn't going to respond. Then he swallowed and spoke: "You're sure I'm not keeping you from something important?"  
"Hey, I'm in charge of my division. They can keep on working without me."  
Andrew paused. "OK." The two of them walked down the hall. Fred told her self she was just have dinner with a colleague. There was nothing else involved in it Yet for some reason she felt more relaxed than she had in a while. 


	4. Two More Heartfelt Discussions

Chapter 4  
Xander did not changed his pattern when he sat by Cordelia's bedside. Occasionally, he would speak to her; tell her of some of the adventures that he had. He would also tell her about some of the good times they had when they had been together. (Willow thought that he must have made up some of it, considering they hadn't been together that long and they had hated each other for most of the time) But mostly he just sat by her bed and held her hand.  
Willow was troubled when she saw this. The image that everybody had of Xander was of this very vocal, almost bubbly man whose charm was that he was always talking. As his best friend, she knew that under the surface was a very sweet boy who had deeper thoughts then most people knew of. But to see this talkative boy reduced to something like this worried her in a way that vampires and zombies didn't .  
Something in Xander had been lost when Anya died. How much Cordelia's condition had aggravated this was unclear but it had sucked something vital that no amount of slaying demons or becoming a Watcher could fix. Xander needed to talk to somebody and she was the best person for the job.  
"Hey Xander." Xander looked up at her.  
"I missed the meeting, didn't I?"  
"Don't worry about it." Willow maintained an air of calm.  
"I'm sorry I lost track of time." He looked at his watch. "Shit, I've been here for two hours. Man, I'm not even going out with her and I'm still spending all my time with her." It was a feeble joke, but then most of Xander's jokes were weak. This one, however, came from a place of pain that hurt Willow's heart.  
"I always wondered what it would take to shut Cordelia up." The moment the last word was out of her mouth, she knew that had been a spectacularly bad thing to say. "That was a stupid thing to say." Xander didn't seem to notice.  
"I've been thinking. And I think that we should send somebody back to Sunnydale and put a plaque or a stone or something up. You know, something that honors the memories of everybody who didn't get out of Sunnydale before the Hellmouth was closed."  
"You mean, like the people who died when the High School blew up... The first time?" Willow spoke slowly.  
"All the kids who died in Sunnydale. All the ones we...couldn't save."  
"That's not a bad idea." Willow saw an opening. "Maybe you could present the idea at our next board meeting"  
"Yeah, I guess I could." Xander sighed. "Will, is... Is there something wrong with me?"  
Willow didn't know how to answer that question. "No, I don't think so. We all deal with grief differently."  
"I know. But I've----we've--- lost people before. It hurt but I got over it"  
"Xander, you were going to marry her. She wasn't just someone you went to high school with."  
"And I was getting over it. But...." Again he seemed at a loss for words.  
"I know what Cordelia meant to you."  
"Yeah." Xander laughed but it was hollow. "Four years she lived in Los Angeles, I called her maybe seven times. And I never went to visit her. It was like she was a part of my life that I was trying to forget."  
"Xander, none of us called her or visited. But that trap swings both ways. She could have come here. The fact of the matter is we all got caught up in our own things. It's hard keeping the high school gang together when they leave town."  
Xander sighed. "Even when I talked to her, she never told me about the kind of burdens that she had taken on. Did she ever complain about the migraines that she was getting every time she had a vision?"  
Willow thought. "Maybe as a joke. I think she thought that they were part of the burden that she had to bear for helping Angel."  
Xander shook his head.. "That's another thing that I had a lot of trouble believing even after she told me. How was it that she could work for Angel? I mean, the girl wanted to get away from everything that was going on in Sunnydale. How could she get dragged back in that circus?"  
"She wasn't dragged, Xander. From what little I know, she walked into this with her eyes wide open."  
"Did she choose to become part demon? Did she know that was going to be part of the package?" There was bitterness in his voice. Willow decided it would be best to keep Angel's name out of the discussion.  
"She thought that she was doing the right thing."  
"Like we did when we brought Buffy back from the dead?" Willow turned to Xander in shock. "Yeah, Anya told me about that. WE brought this whole thing with the First crashing down upon our heads. Because of what we did, the human race nearly went extinct."  
Willow tried to gain control of herself. "And what were we supposed to do? The line of the Slayer went through Faith. There wasn't going to be anybody coming to help us. We had no choice."  
Xander thought this over. "I know that."  
"Then why'd you..."  
"Because we never thought of things in the long term. We were always trying to get through the next day, the next battle, the next big bad. Maybe if we had thought about the consequences, we could have avoided.... Everything else." He trailed off.  
"Xander we grew up in a town where you had to live life day to day. Sure, we should have thought about the consequences but there were more immediate urgencies. That's how things are."  
Xander stroked Cordelia's hand. "Tell me something, Will. Back when we founded the 'I Hate Cordelia' club, did you ever think that there would be a time when we thought of her as brave and noble?" Willow shook her head. "Me neither." He got up. "Of course, I never thought that she would become... This."  
"Xander...."  
"I mean, part of me would like nothing more than to see Cordelia awake. But then I realize that if she ever regains consciousness, we might have to..." He couldn't finish the thought.  
Willow realized that she might not have a better opportunity. "Xander, have you thought about maybe working somewhere else? Getting away from all the fighting and the... bad memories?"  
Xander looked up. "I've got everybody worried, don't I?"  
"Xander, I don't think you should put yourself through this much agony when you don't have to. When there are other options. We're in the biggest city in the country; you have a lot more options then you think."  
"I know, Will. And believe me I have thought about it. There are times when I really feel like telling everybody I want out."  
"Then why don't you?"  
"Because it's not finished yet." Willow looked up in surprise.  
"What do you mean?"  
"Come on, don't tell that me you don't feel it."  
"Feel what?"  
"That sealing the Hellmouth didn't stop the forces of evil. I know I'm probably the least connected to the demon world, but even I know that whatever it was that Angel tried to stop is still out there. Those prophecies that you and Dawn and Wes have been trying to translate. There's some great force still rising and if we don't find out what it is, nobody will be safe."  
Willow had not had any idea that Xander had felt the vibes this strongly. "Yeah, somethings out there."  
"And I need to be able to set up the defenses." Xander sighed. "I know that I've got to find a way to get my head back in the game. But..." He sighed again. "Christ, I could give Angel a run for his money when it comes to brooding."  
"I don't think that you have to worry about that." Willow tried to joke. Then seriously, "Look, I know some magic spells that can ease the pain a little..."  
"Yeah, and those things never go wrong." Then before he became offensive, he said. "Look, I think I need to get through this by myself. Maybe if I... Changed my job. Worked training the Slayers some more. I don't know. What do you think?"  
Willow wasn't sure what she was going to say (she thought that it was only a quick fix but couldn't think of anything better) but then her beeper went off. So did Xander's.  
" Buffy wants to speak with us. Apparently somebody just showed up by himself at the lobby wanting to talk to us." she said.  
"Us us or.."  
"Buffy and Angel. They both think that it is important that we meet him."  
"That's odd." It was. Despite the fact that they had been at this office for nearly a month, most of the clients for Angel-Slayer Inc. had been accompanied by Lorne or someone else from the firm. Only two other times had a client come directly to Wolfram and Hart. And Buffy and Angel had yet to deal with a client important enough to talk with the entire firm.  
"Want to see who it is?" When Xander hesitated, she followed with: "It'll break up the day"  
"What the hell." Xander shrugged and the two friends left Cordelia's bedside, unaware that the visitor was going to be a new landmark in their fight against darkness.  
  
One of the things that Fred had missed most about what she had begun to think of as the pre-Pylean part of her life had been the long and interesting discussions that she had with fellow college students. Most of the talks had been in classes with other physics majors where they would talk about some of the more abstract theories that they read about in class. However, on occasion, she would go to the lounge in her dormitory and listen to some of her other classmate discuss themes that were out of her bailiwick. Philosophy, history, great literature--- while she didn't understand all the topics that were being discussed, it was somehow comforting to hear other people discuss anything with passion and animation. There were a lot of good things about working with Angel, but there was never any time to discuss anything that didn't have to deal with the crisis at hand. In a way this was good because a lot of the college students were just acting pretentious, but after a long period of dealing with emergencies you missed having talks about less important matters.  
That had been one of the reasons that she had decided to have dinner with Andrew. Part of her wanted-- almost needed --- to talk about something that wasn't an emergency.  
"I mean, I know that I'm not a theological expert and my biggest philosophical project was The Ethics of Star Trek, but there are some real ramifications in both areas about Spike---- and Angel too." Andrew said before taking a bite out of his sandwich. "I mean the idea of a soul as not just some metaphysical concept but actually being a physical thing---- that would set the religious world on its ear"  
"I get what you're saying. I mean I'm not very religious myself, but even I know the importance of the concept of the soul." Fred paused. "But I don't think it's quite what most people or even I thought it was."  
"I'm not sure I follow you."  
"Well, according to your basic religion--- Christianity or Catholicism is most obvious--- the soul is the part of your body that does good or evil. But in the case of Angel, the soul appears to be the part of you that does good and feels compassion for other people. At least that is was the fundamental difference between Angel and Angelus."  
"But more than that, I think it would come as some kind of shock that a soul is something that can be possessed--- physically. I mean, you had it in the Orb of Thesulah. It was something substantial. I mean that's up there with the discovery of a new planet."  
"I know. It's a shame that scientific papers aren't on the same level of theology papers, there's a real essay in here."  
"How much scientific lingo do you need in order to write one of those papers?" Fred looked up at Andrew, who shrugged. "Hey, this is a pretty tough project I've taken on; doing something like this might be easier."  
"Well, maybe we shouldn't rush to bringing this to light. I mean people have a hard enough idea adjusting to the concept of religion. The idea that we gathered data from knowledge of the existence of the undead--- well, that might bring a certain amount of attention that we don't need."  
Andrew pondered this while taking a sip of his Coke. "Yeah. Back in Sunnydale, there was this wall of denial that everybody in town seemed to put up in order to avoid dealing with what was happening. I guess that you can't hope that it would be the same everywhere."  
Fred, realizing that she might not get a better lead in, spoke up. "Speaking of Sunnydale, there was something that the others wanted to talk to you about."  
"Really?" For a moment the eager smile on Andrew's face flickered. "Wait a minute. This wouldn't have anything to do with the request for an expedition to Sunnydale that I put in a week ago?"  
"That's right, well that's not quite right. Wait a minute, who did you file the request with?"  
"I asked one of the executives who worked here where I put the paperwork together to make a request. He told me to just put the paper together and he'd make sure that the right people saw it. I figured he meant Angel and you."  
Fred sighed. "Well, whoever you talked to must have thought that you were in charge because they've readied for some kind of campaign there."  
"Damn it! I'm sorry. I didn't want this to happen. I wanted your blessing on this as well as your input."  
"It's OK. We intercepted your application before anything got started. But..." Fred stopped. "What none of us understand is why you wanted to dig around there in the first place. Were you looking for more material for your story?"  
Andrew looked at Fred as of she had grown another head. "God no. I admit that there are some weak patches in the story that need filling in and it's true that some of the only information is probably buried there, but I'm not crazy enough to want to root around there."  
"Then why?" Fred was starting to get concerned as well as curious.  
Andrew paused. "You have to understand... I have no definitive evidence that anything is wrong and it is very possible I'm worried about nothing."  
"But..."  
"I think that whatever evil that resided in Sunnydale, whatever it was that made the Hellmouth spit out monsters for all that time, is still alive." Fred felt a mixture of fear, dismay and alarm... But not surprise.  
"But... The Hellmouth was sealed. The First was killed."  
"What makes you so certain that it's dead? This thing was supposedly the well spring of every terrifying thing that existed since the creation of good and evil. What makes you so sure that something of that magnitude can be killed?"  
"You don't believe Buffy and the other Slayers killed it?"  
"I think they thought they did." He sighed. "How well do you know the X-Men?" Fred thought she had a look of astonishment on her face because Andrew said: "I'm going somewhere with this."  
"Well, I saw the movie and watched the cartoon series. I probably don't know it as well as you."  
"Well, the greatest threat that the X-Men ever faced was a mutant named, appropriately Apocalypse. Pretty nihilistic for a comic book villain; he wanted to destroy the entire world. But he could not be killed. There have been a lot of conflicting stories as to why, but what it came down to was he was so old that he existed outside of time".  
A picture was coming together in Fred's head and she didn't like it much. "So you think that somehow the First... exists in other dimensions and even if it was killed in one it might still be alive in another?"  
"I don't know. What I do know is that for all the chaos that was going on in the High School, nobody saw the First fall. "  
"Don't you think that the Hellmouth closing is a pretty good sign that something big happened?"  
"We have no evidence. For all we know, it could have been brought about by Spike's last act. None of them saw a body. "  
"And that's why you want to dig up Sunnydale? To see if the things really dead?"  
"Wouldn't you sleep a lot better knowing that this threat is gone for good?"  
Fred thought this over, then nodded. "But what if you're right? What if the only thing that's keeping the First dormant is the collapsed Hellmouth? What if...excavating brought it back to life?"  
"Then better it be us than someone doing it by accident or someone with a lot nastier motive." Andrew took out his wallet. "That's the other thing that worries me."  
"I don't follow."  
"A week ago, I was on-line looking for information on what was happening around Sunnydale. I ran across this." He handed Fred a piece of paper.  
She looked at what was apparently an article from the Sacramento Bee." 'Multi-National Conglomerate Bids on Demolished Town' In a move that left the business world scrambling, Cloverleaf Industry announced that it was bidding on the land that made up the former town of Sunnydale. Spokesmen for CEO Martha Frowland announced that this was a culmination of an effort to rebuild the often troubled former city'" Fred looked up. "Well this could be problematic, but I'm not sure why you find this so alarming."  
"Look at the name of the CEO."  
For a moment Fred wasn't sure what Andrew was talking about. Then like a bolt of lightning, she saw it. 'Martha Frowland' unscrambled to read Wolfram And Hart.'  
She looked up, stunned. "Have you told anybody else about this?"  
"About what? For all I know, this could just be a coincidence."  
"But you don't think so?"  
"Let me ask you. DO you think that the people who used to run this place are insane enough to attempt to bring back a force that could wipe out the human race?"  
Fred thought about this for ten seconds. It took that long for the enormity of all this to hit her.  
"Come with me." she said as she got up. "I think we need to tell Wesley and Giles and the others. "  
Despite the urgency of the matter, she couldn't help but turn to Andrew and say: "You know, when she was arguing to have you work with us, Faith told us that you had really changed. I don't think anybody here had realized how much."  
Andrew gave a half smile as they started walking. "What can I say? When you fight in something as big as the last battle of Sunnydale, you'd have to be made of stone not to change a little. I'm a different person. Hopefully a better one."  
Fred was about to say something complimentary when her pager went off. "Oh, now what?" she said.  
"Anything serious?"  
"Angel wants to meet with us at the front desk. Look, that's as good as any place to talk to everybody. Come with me."  
The two of them walked towards the elevator. 


	5. The Badly Dressed Man

Chapter 5 Half an hour earlier.  
  
Angel knocked on the door to Buffy's office, telling himself for the umpteenth time that this was just a simple business call and that he wasn't going to burden Buffy with anything she didn't want to know about the last two years.  
Talk about the lawsuit, he thought, or how you believe that something wicked is coming. Let's try to avoid the subjects of Cordelia and Spike. Or for that matter anything concerning our relationship.  
It shouldn't have been this difficult. They had yet to speak about any of what had happened to them in the two years and there was no particular reason that they would start now. Yet every time he approached Buffy he had to mentally gird himself to not open doors that were better off closed.  
By coincidence, Buffy opened the door to her office a second later. Before she said anything to him, he saw a rush of conflicted emotions cross her face. He knew that if it had been possible for him to see his own face, the same expressions were probably appearing on it.  
"Angel. Hey, what ... Is there.. Anything that I can do for you?" Normally a master of conversation, Buffy was verbally stumbling . "What are you doing here?"  
A good question. Angel thought that he had had a good reason for wanting to talk with Buffy, but now that the moment had arrived he couldn't remember any of them.  
"Well Buffy, it's um.. Well it's just that.. The way things are going.. I..."  
"Angel. Stop it." There was a firmness in her voice that he had almost forgotten. "I think that we both know what we need to talk about."  
"Really?" Angel was both relieved and unnerved. Relieved because he was no longer in this box he'd been in for the past month, unnerved because the way she was talking she had decided that uncomfortable subjects were about to be broached.  
"We've been dancing around each other for a while. Neither of us have wanted to talk about it, but if we're going to work together, we need to be open about it." Angel was about to argue when he realized that she was right.  
"Yeah. There have been some things that have happened to me over the past two years that have changed me. "  
"Same here. Well actually it's been a little longer than that for me... But, yeah I've changed too."  
"I don't know what our relationship is going to be like. I know that there are feelings between us and all kinds of obstacles, but if we don't talk about them, we're never going to be able to get through them."  
Angel sighed. "You're right. OK. Let's talk." There was another pause. It seemed to last for hours.  
"Buffy, after you died---" "Angel, me and Spike---" They both stopped.  
"I think we'd better decide who goes first." said Buffy.  
"Yeah. OK." Angel was about to begin speaking when suddenly Buffy's phone rang. She sighed.  
"Well, that was probably inevitable." She picked up the phone. "This had better be good." A pause.  
"Yes, he's right here."  
"No, I've never heard of him"  
"He's asking for both of us by name?"  
"And he won't tell you the details?" She sighed.  
"OK. We'll be right down." She hung up the phone. "I really hate to say this, but we're going to have to continue this talk later."  
"Who was that?"  
"The receptionist. A man named Leonard Kopell just walked in off the street and told her that it was of the utmost importance that he talk to Buffy Summers and Angel."  
"Who?"  
"I've never heard of him either. But he said that it was of vital importance that he talk to both of us."  
Angel was puzzled. No man had come to the office wanting to talk with Angel; they always wanted to talk to 'someone in charge'. For that matter, he didn't think that there was a person who knew Buffy was working here.  
"Should we tell the others?" Buffy thought for a moment and then shook her head.  
"Let's talk to this guy first. Maybe we can figure out whether or not he's serious."  
"They're always serious, Buffy. What matters is the degree." Buffy looked at Angel.  
"Let's hope it's not."  
  
In the lobby, it was pretty easy to pick out Leonard Kopell. He was the only person in the entryway not wearing a suit. (It was very difficult for Angel to get used to everyone who wasn't a friend dressing in a coat and tie; but he didn't think he could find it in himself to declare it casual wear.)  
Indeed Kopell was one of the most unkempt people that he had seen in a long time. He had bushy brown hair that stood up in mad-scientist corkscrews. He was wearing a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles that seemed too big for his narrow face. He had a light brown beard that seemed more fitting on a beatnik than any one who lived today. His shirt was not tucked in and the cuffs of his pants were not even. The overall effect seemed to be that of a man who had no personal regard for hygiene at all. It seemed more fitting for a teenager, but he was far too old to be one (Angel thought he was in his late-twenties but his appearance made it hard to tell) and he couldn't imagine any mother letting her son leave the house in such a fashion.  
Kopell turned to both of them as they walked up to meet him. "You're Buffy Summers and Angel?" he said. His voice seemed perfectly neutral.  
"Yes." Buffy said, her voice giving nothing away either.  
"The Vampire Slayer and the vampire with a soul?" he said.  
The two of them looked at each other. "I don't know of anyone else with those names." Buffy tried to hide it but it was clear she was unsettled by this total stranger knowing who they were. Angel was a little shaken up too. True both of them had been known in Sunnydale but mostly among the demon underworld. Most people in Sunnydale (and Los Angeles for that matter) didn't know who either of them really was.  
"Mr. Kopell, have we met before?" asked Buffy.  
"Well, yes and no." Kopell said.  
"You're going to have to be a little clearer than that." said Angel.  
"Well, over the past four years, I have the seen the two of you fight the forces of evil several times." Leonard said this as if it were as casual as meeting the two of them at a Dodger game. His surety and calmness were beginning to get under Angel's skin a little.  
"For four years?" Buffy said as if she were talking to someone whose sanity was in question.  
"I realize that you have been doing it for a little longer, of course, but I've only been witness to the last four years."  
Buffy looked at Angel as if she were asking him to handle this. "Well, you'll have to excuse us if we don't believe you. Because I don't remember seeing you anywhere near where I have fought."  
"Well, there's a reason for that. I wasn't actually there when I saw you fight."  
Buffy was getting a look on her face that Angel had almost forgotten she had. Roughly translated, it meant: If this guy doesn't start making sense soon, I'm going to throw him out on his ass. Angel sympathized with her, but having had conversations like this before, he decided that he would give Leonard a couple of more minutes.  
"So you have been seeing the two of us fight, but you weren't physically there. In other words, you've been having visions." Leonard nodded enthusiastically. "And you have been seeing this for four years."  
"Well, no. To be perfectly precise, someone else has been allowing me to witness your heroics."  
"Really? Who?" Angel had asked this question more so that he could get his bearings more then he expected to get an answer. He was therefore somewhat surprised when he got a response so quickly.  
"I don't know for certain, but I think that it's God."  
There was silence for several seconds. Angel had rarely seen Buffy at a loss for words but he didn't blame her. This particular argument was one that they had never really prepared for. For all the fighting that they had done against evil, they had rarely even asked the question who might be on the other side. Gods (capitalized or not) rarely entered into Angel's thinking. He had never even registered that 'the powers that be' as anything other than observers. He guessed the fact that there were demons in the world led to the possibility that there was some other force representing good. But to hear a stranger with utter certainty that God was sending him visions... that was hard to deal with.  
Finally Buffy recovered. "So let me get this straight. You've been seeing visions of us for the past four years and you decide that you have to come to us now?"  
Leonard shifted uneasily. "Well... Um... The thing is... I didn't learn your names until about three months ago. You see, mostly the visions were unclear --- flashes of things, you standing over a demon, you with a stake in your hand that sort of thing."  
"So you were seeing what we did but not who we were." said Buffy.  
"Well, um that's the long and short of it."  
"And you got these visions from God." Angel said.  
"I don't know who else would send them to me." That was a perfectly valid point. Angel looked at Buffy and they both made a decision to let the whole 'God' thing go until he got to his point.  
"Mr. Kopell---" Buffy began.  
"Please call me Leonard. I don't think I'm distinguished enough to be called Mr. Kopell."  
"OK Leonard. Without meaning any disrespect, you come to our office--- I can only imagine that you had some vision of us here--- " Leonard nodded- -- "tell us that you know us and that you've come to---" Buffy stopped. "Why exactly did you come here?"  
The confident look on Leonard's face went away. Suddenly, Angel could recognize that this man was scared of something. "Because I need your help. And I understand that helping people is what you do."  
"Well, if there's anything that we can do, we'll do it. What exactly is your problem?" said Angel.  
"I know that you probably hear this all the time, but with me it really is true: It's kind of complicated."  
"It always is." sighed Buffy. Angel ignored her. He could tell that something was bothering Leonard that was beyond the norm. He kept shuffling his feet and fiddling with his glasses together.  
"OK, there's something that you should know about me before we go any further."  
"And that is?"  
Leonard took a deep breath. "The thing is, three years ago, I was hospitalized---I mean, it was more like committed..."  
"You had to go to an institution." Suddenly Buffy had gone very still.  
"Yes. I was diagnosed for suffering optical and audio hallucinations."  
"Did this happen... When you told your family about what was  
happening to you? About the things that you were seeing and hearing." There was something in Buffy that Angel hadn't seen in a while. Empathy. But he couldn't figure out why.  
"The thing is... I saw and heard a lot of things for such a long time... I didn't start getting names for a very long time... I didn't know that you were real people." Leonard's voice was getting shakier and Angel wondered if he was about to start crying.  
"It's all right, Leonard. I know that this has been very confusing and frightening for you but you're safe now." Under other circumstances, the sight of this small young girl comforting this older man might have seemed comic. But it hurt Angel in a place that he hadn't felt before. "Everything's going to be all right."  
Leonard looked up and fixed Buffy with a stare. Angel recognized this kind of expression too; it was the sight of a man with eyes much older than his real age . Angel knew that his own eyes were like that.  
"Thank you for saying that. But I don't think it will. No, I don't think that it will."  
  
They had gathered back on the first floor. Angel had asked if he should bring in the others but Buffy decided to put them on hold, at least for now. They still didn't know what this man (even though he was clearly older than her, she still had trouble thinking him as such) wanted and if confronted with a group he might fold up still further. They had put Leonard on a couch and offered him a drink, but he still seemed as if he might fly apart at the slightest thing. She decided that the best thing to do would be to let him talk and try and gradually work out what he wanted.  
"Leonard, you have to understand." Buffy began." Whatever is frightening you or worrying you I'm sure that's its very bad, but me and Angel and the rest of our friends, we're used to dealing with these kinds of things."  
"Yeah, and we do have the kind of reach that if you tell us what's wrong, there's a very good chance that we'll be able to stop it." Buffy looked at Angel somewhat surprised. She knew that Angel had been doing this for four years, but she had not expected him to have such a tight grip on it.  
However, it seemed to be working because Leonard gave them a smile. It was very fragile but it was there nevertheless. "I know. I mean I have been seeing these things for a while... And I know that you... You and your friends... You've always managed to come out on top."  
"Right." Buffy was still not quite sure how to take his visions seriously. She believed they were probably real but they might still be hallucinations.  
"It's just... I've seen you fight. And ... And even when you win, you lose people."  
Buffy had to work to stifle a sigh herself. "You're right. There are no guarantees."  
"I'm just not sure if I can take losing any more people." Angel and Buffy exchanged a glance.  
"I thought you just saw these things." Angel said.  
"No, the losing people started long before I started seeing things."  
"Maybe you better go back a bit. When did the losing people start?"  
"When I went to high school." Suddenly Buffy felt a chill go through her. Suddenly, she knew, even before she asked the question, where Leonard was from.  
"And where was that?" she managed to form the question.  
Leonard gave a smile with absolutely no humor in it. "Same place as you." He stuck out his hand. "Sunnydale High: Class of '94."  
"Excuse me a moment. " Buffy got up to her feet while trying to maintain the veneer of calm she had been exercising so far. She didn't think that she succeeded and she really didn't care; she needed to talk to Angel.  
"Call down Wesley and Giles. I think this could be important."  
Angel tried to turn his head away from here. "You think this is him?"  
"A man from a dark place who sees things that no man shall see?" Buffy turned back to Leonard. "Yeah, I think this is our seer." 


	6. Leonard's Story

Chapter 6  
"I was always good with numbers" As he told his story to the others that Buffy and Angel had brought in, Leonard's voice became more certain and sure as he warmed to his story. "So just before I graduated; I checked on how many freshmen had been in the class of 1994. It was buried pretty deep--- I guess it's not good for business to have such a high mortality rate--- but I found it. One hundred and eighty seven brave souls went to freshman orientation in 1990."  
He paused. The others--- particularly Buffy, Xander, and Willow--- were hanging on his every word. Giles knew why they were paying such close attention. It was like talking to someone who had survived the Battle of Antietam or the Battle of the Bulge. This man had survived a struggle greater than most people could ever imagine: a pre-Buffy Sunnydale.  
"Seventy nine of us graduated." He laughed without much humor. "Commendatory speaker gave us the usual line of how the future was ours. One hundred and eight of us never got a chance of any kind of future. And those of us who survived we could never even figure out why."  
"Did anyone ever attempt an explanation?" asked Willow.  
Leonard shook his head. "Every once  
in a while would they find a  
body dead of severe neck wounds. A lot of  
times it would disappear before the  
funeral and they would say there were a  
bunch of sick people out there. The rest,  
they just disappeared and no one ever  
heard from them again. Their parents  
thought that they had run away from home.  
Maybe some of them did."  
Leonard looked up. "By my junior  
year, I had stopped making friends. I  
couldn't take having someone I know just  
disappear."  
"And nobody ever asked why this was happening, " said Xander. It was not a question.  
"No one ever talked about it. We all just went about not going out at night and pretending that there were a lot of gangs on drugs. I wanted to tell my parents what was wrong, but..." There were tears in his eyes. "How do you say that the things that go bump in the night really do exist?"  
Buffy put her hand on the man's shoulder. "We know. It was really tough for all of us. But you got through it. You made it."  
Leonard looked up. "Yeah. Hurray. I spent the better parts of my teenage years hiding in my room with the windows locked and talking to no one. After I graduated, I came back as little as I possibly could. I begged, wheedled and harassed my parents into moving to L.A."  
"You got them out of there; you probably saved their lives." Angel said. "There's no shame in that."  
"Then why do I feel that all I did was run away?" Leonard held his head in his hands. "All I wanted was to get away from the strangeness, live a normal life." He sighed.  
"And it was then that your visions started," Giles said.  
"No." The others looked at him in surprise. "For three years, I had as close to a normal life as possible. I went to USC, I started making friends, everything was OK." He took a deep breath. "Then, about a week after my twenty-first birthday, I had a dream."  
Wesley and Giles exchanged glances and a wave of uncertainty went through everyone. They all understood the power of dreams--- Buffy had had several prophetic ones since she had become the Slayer--- but dreams somehow lacked the potency of visions. He was beginning to wonder if this man's story was actually valid.  
"I saw my English professor walking down the street to his apartment. Then I saw two men in masks walk up to him. They asked for his wallet and after he gave it to him, they shot him seven times." Leonard's tone and demeanor did little to betray his emotions, but Giles could tell that this had rocked him. "They stood over him and watched him die. Then I woke up."  
"And later you found that it had happened." finished Xander.  
"No." Everyone looked up in surprise. "But three days later, he was dead. They never found who the shooters were so I never found out if it was completely true. I tried to tell myself that it was a coincidence. And when the dreams kept coming, the people who were involved were strangers so I never knew if they were true."  
"But you kept seeing people in trouble," said Wesley.  
"That was the general theme, yes. For a year, I tried to pretend that this was just the result of a very vivid imagination; some kind of carryover from Sunnydale. I graduated college afraid to go to sleep for what I might end up seeing." He paused. "Then I reached a point where I could no longer pretend that this was all in my head."  
"You had a vision." said Fred.  
Leonard nodded. "June 5, 1999. I was in a bookstore looking through the latest Jonathan Kellerman novel. Suddenly, the world around me just went fuzzy. I didn't black out or see stars; it was just like this wipe cut in a film. All of a sudden I was in this fancy apartment. And I knew---" he shook his head-- "somehow I knew that I was back in Sunnydale."  
"What did you see?" asked Gunn. Leonard pointed to Buffy. "Figures."  
"I saw her go flying against one of the walls. There was a TV screen in it, she broke that. She got up and ran towards her." He pointed at Faith.  
There was a nasty jolt in the room, particularly from the Sunnydale contingent. They all had a very good idea what Leonard was describing even though none of them had talked about it in four years.  
"For a couple of minutes, it was like a John Woo film. I had never seen anything like it and I wasn't sure why I was seeing it but I had this terrible sense that one of you was going to be dead."  
Suddenly Buffy had a strange look on her face. It was a strange combination of memory, pain and sorrow. Faith had a similar look on her face. The two of them seemed to be undergoing some kind of mental struggle. Finally Faith spoke with a hesitancy that she rarely showed. "Did you see me... Get killed?"  
Leonard shook his head. "I saw the two of you smash through a glass window onto the balcony. Then I saw her---" He looked at Buffy. "At that point I didn't know who you were." Buffy nodded--- "take out this nasty looking dagger. Then my vision kind of swam again. When I could see again, I was back in the bookstore, scared shitless."  
"I can imagine," said Buffy.  
"I spent the next three days trying to convince myself that I was not going crazy. I thought it was some kind of hallucination or mental breakdown; the idea that it might really be happening was pushed to the backburner. "  
"When did the next vision come?" asked Wesley.  
"Five days after the first one." Leonard sighed. "I won't bore you with a vision by vision rundown. Suffice to say, I spent the better part of nine months trying to hold on to my sanity. I tried to convince my parents that I was fine but about three months in I told them. I just..." He shook his head.  
"You needed to tell someone," said Angel.  
"There's a history of mental illness in my family. My Uncle Samuel had the equivalent of a psychotic breakdown when he was twenty six. I thought the same thing was happening to me."  
"So you tried to get rid of them," said Willow.  
"And nothing worked. When my parents suggested that I be hospitalized, I was desperate so I said yes. They tried anti-psychotic drugs, hypnosis, and even electroshock therapy. At first the visions went away, but then they started to come back stronger then ever. It was like... Who ever was sending these things to me was trying to work through the mental impediments that were being put up. Finally, I realized that the only way that I was going to get out was to lie. It took me another month before I was able to convince the doctors that the visions were gone." Leonard sighed again. "I still haven't managed to convince my parents."  
"I hate to get off your pain, but there's something that you haven't told us," said Giles. "When you say that you were having visions, just what exactly were you seeing? People in trouble?"  
"Sometimes it was people in trouble. Occasionally, I would get bits and pieces as to where and when. But the longer that I had the visions, the more often they tended to be one of two groups. I would be in Sunnydale with Buffy's gang or Los Angeles with Angel's. "  
"And what were we doing?" said Buffy.  
Leonard shook his head. "You gotta understand. Despite the fact that I grew up in Sunnydale, I had never actually seen..." He trailed off, appearing to be going through some kind of internal struggle. "... demons before. So when I saw either of you fighting these... Things, I took it as a sign that I was suffering from even more advanced delusions then even the doctors thought."  
"If you thought that you were that far gone, why did you fight so hard to get out of that institution? Weren't you concerned for your safety?" asked Willow.  
Leonard looked up with an expression of resolve that the man had not shown before. "Spending three months in that place convinced me that if I spent too long in there, I'd be dead in a year. If I was going to be crazy, I wanted to live free as long as it was possible. I know how it sounds, but..."  
"It's OK, we get it," said Buffy. Giles frowned. He didn't understand it, or why Buffy was being so emphatic with this man, but he decided to let this all go for the moment.  
"What finally made you accept that what you were seeing was real?" Angel asked.  
"About a year and a half ago, I started to get sound in my visions. I heard the sounds of you fighting and more importantly I heard you start yelling warnings at each other. For the first time, I knew the names of the people I was seeing." He pointed at them each in turn. "Willow, Xander, Dawn, Gunn, Fred, Wesley, Giles, Faith---" he stopped and looked around. "Anya, Spike and Cordelia, who aren't here.. And Buffy and Angel. That's what convinced me that you were real."  
Giles looked blank. "I don't understand. How did knowing our names help?"  
"I may have a very active imagination and I may have been delusional. But there's no way under any circumstances that I would give any hallucinated girl a name like Buffy. And giving a guy a name like Angel..." There was a smile on his face. "Only in California could people like this could exist."  
The group took this in for a few moments. Xander, perhaps inevitably, was the first one to react.  
"Well, I knew I wasn't the only one who thought Angel was a girly name."  
"What are you saying; that our names are weird?" said Faith.  
"Hey, I'm not trying to be insulting or anything. It's just... I'm a very old-fashioned kind of guy. If I were making up imaginary people, I would call them James and Susan and Robert. It's how I think," said Leonard.  
Giles wasn't entirely sure how to take this. It seemed to be a relatively inane thing to make a person change his whole belief system. However, he had questioned the wisdom of the Chase and Harris families' choices when it came to their choices in first name. He decided that it would be better if they just went on.  
  
"So now that you knew that we were real people, why didn't you go to us then?" said Giles.  
"Well, be fair. I knew your names but that was it. And as distinctive as they were, it's not like I could call Sunnydale and ask for the listing of 'Buffy'. And it probably wouldn't have helped my case if I had told you that I had seen you fighting what seemed to be people with the worst skin conditions on the planet. " Leonard looked around. "I needed to do some research and I had to be very subtle."  
"I can imagine," said Dawn. "It's not like you could have just called up someone and said: 'Hello, I'm looking for a girl named Buffy, hangs around cemeteries after dark, fights vampires and-- Hello?' That wouldn't have gone over well. "  
For a moment the attention shifted to Dawn, who grinned self- consciously. Then everyone decided to just move on.  
"Fortunately, I had managed to find some work so I could afford to pay a private investigator to find you. Frankly, if I had been making more money at the bookstore, I could have probably found someone better and faster to do the legwork. But to be perfectly honest, I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to do or say when I finally found you. So I didn't have the greatest impetus to have him hurry it." Leonard finished sheepishly.  
"How long did it take for them to figure out who we were?" said Willow.  
"About six months. I was still having the visions, of course, and occasionally there would come a new detail or so, but it still took some time. By September of last year, I knew who all of you were."  
"So by this time last year, you knew who we all were and what we were doing?" asked Giles. "Why didn't you come and see any of us then?"  
Leonard took a long time to answer this question. "Because about one week later, I got the mother of all visions. It was a lot clearer and it showed exactly what was going to happen in L.A. " He looked at Angel. "The sky rained fire and brimstone. The sun went black. A great beast approached and slaughtered every man and woman that confronted it. And then I saw all of California under the spell of this.... Woman. When I came back from this one, I was sick to the stomach for some time."  
"Well, I'd have thought that you would have been used to it by now." said Gunn.  
Leonard looked up. "What do you mean?"  
"Well, I mean four years of having visions and the killer migraines that go with them, you should have..." Gunn trailed off. Leonard looked at him as if he was speaking Tagalog.  
"Gunn, I have been having visions for more than five years. The most lasting side effect that any of them gave was feeling a little queasy when it was over. I never had headaches of any kind."  
Now it was the Angel's Investigation group that looked at each other. From what little Giles had managed to learn about seers was that the visions came with splitting headaches capable of stopping a demon in his tracks. If Leonard Kopell was getting these divinations with out any pain, there had to be a string attached. And there was only one that occurred.  
"Um, Leonard.. You wouldn't happen... to have any... Demon blood in your family.. would you?" Fred tried to phrase the question as carefully as possible without insulting him.  
She managed to offend him anyway. "I know that you don't mean to insult me with that remark, but you have no right to abuse my parents at all.." Leonard's voice, which had been level for almost his entire soliloquy, began to raise. "They've had to deal with a hard enough life and for you to call them...them..."  
Angel decided to cut in before something was said that could not be recalled. "Leonard, this isn't what's bothering us. I think what we want to know is why you didn't come to us with this vision. You knew it was important."  
Leonard took another deep breath. "Everything that I had seen had been very difficult. But the fact was you-- all of you--- had taken on the evil of the world and were still standing. I thought that you would probably survive without me telling you that there was going to be so much death and destruction."  
"So you didn't come to us because you were confident we'd win." said Wesley. His voice had suddenly begun to rise. "Well, we certainly could have used the heads up. If we'd known what was coming we might have been able to save some of the people who died. We might have been able to figure out who was behind the attacks. You had an obligation to those people to come to us."  
Leonard took all this in. For a moment, Giles thought that he was going to take this rebuke without question. Then he stood. "You're right. I did have an obligation. You want to know something? It doesn't matter to me. I and my parents were in harms way as long as we stayed here. So I decided it would be safer to get the hell out of Dodge. Maybe I could have helped you but I was more interested in staying alive."  
"You're a coward," said Willow. The way she spoke, it was clear she didn't expect an answer. Leonard responded anyway  
"You know something? You're right. So are ninety percent of the people that you have helped save. We can't all be heroes or champions or whatever the hell it is you are. You've been doing this for so long you probably have forgotten, but this is scary shit. Now I am not proud of my actions, but I am not ashamed of them either. I'm scared. That's why I'm here. And I don't have to defend what I did to you or anyone else."  
  
Wesley was about to say something else when Buffy spoke up. "He's right. We're in no position to make judgments." She turned to him. "But why did you return to L.A. if you figured that it was going to be a dangerous place?"  
"Two things. First of all, over the past four months, my life has been in danger. Someone --- or something--- has been trying to kill me."  
"I thought that you got out of Los Angeles." said Xander.  
"I did. The last two attempts on my life came in Phoenix and then in Carson City."  
"You left California altogether," said Angel.  
"Something big was coming down here. I figured I would be safe where it wasn't." Leonard looked up at the others, defying them to fault his logic.  
"What happened exactly?" questioned Giles.  
"I was on my way home from work and this car pulled up behind me. I don't know how I knew that he--- or it--- was carrying some kind of machine gun. All I remember is ducking behind some garbage can before he fired." He looked up grimly. "The only reason I didn't die right there was that a police car pulled up behind it. The car pulled out and I ran home as fast I could. Four days later, I withdrew what money I had left from my job and convinced my parents to go east while I went west."  
"You wanted to get your parents out of the line of fire," said Buffy. "That's sort of brave."  
"There's that, and I knew that if I was attacked again, I was probably going to have to kill whatever was chasing me," Leonard said somberly. "I didn't know if I could do that while they were in danger."  
"So you went to Nevada," said Willow.  
"Three weeks after I moved there, I was in my apartment when I heard the sound of a window breaking." He sighed. "I went for the gun that I had bought before I left Phoenix. I never hoped that I would run into a burglar before, but you have no idea how hard that I was praying that was all it would be."  
"But it wasn't," prompted Fred.  
"The second that I entered the room, it ran at me. I never did get a good look at it. But its face was green and it had a red jewel in its forehead. I fired five shots before it reached me; I don't even think that it slowed down. It was almost on top of me before--- I don't know why I did it--- I fired at the jewel. The thing collapsed in this puddle."  
For some reason Angel had gone very still. "Sounds like a Mohra demon. But they only attack champions."  
"Well, I'll take your word for it. After the thing died, I found this on it." Leonard took out a ring. "I kept it out of the hands of the police because I knew that I had seen it somewhere before." He handed the ring to Buffy and Angel. Buffy glanced at it for a moment before handing it off. Angel, on the other hand, visibly stiffened when he saw it.  
"Where did you see it?" asked Xander.  
"I had a vision the day before this attack. A group of men were standing around with a group of demons. They were discussing something of importance, but I couldn't tell what. But several of them were wearing rings like this."  
Angel walked over to Giles and handed him the ring. It had a unique design on it."He's not the only one who's seen it before, " he said grimly.  
Giles looked at it for a minute then realized he had seen it before too. And that though he couldn't figure out why they would target this man, he knew that Leonard was in a great deal of danger.  
"Good lord."  
"Hey English, want to fill us in?" said Gunn.  
Giles looked up. "The demon who came to kill him was a member of the Order of Taraka."  
Most of the room went still when Giles gave the name. The few who were not quiet were Fred, Gunn and Faith, the only ones who did not have the experience to know what the order represented.  
"I'm guessing that they aren't the Rotary Club," said Fred.  
"They're an order of assassins. Some are human, some are not," said Wesley. "They're renowned for being the most ruthless and patient of all killers. Once they make you a target, they don't stop hunting you until you're dead."  
"Don't remind me, " said Buffy with a sigh.  
"You've dealt with them before," said Gunn.  
"Five years ago, Spike got so tired of me constantly foiling his plans that he sent the Order after me," replied Buffy. "I managed to beat back three of their assassins but it was not pleasant."  
"Tell me about it. I still can't look at a worm without grimacing," said Xander.  
"But you managed to defeat them," said Wesley.  
"No, we'd still be dealing with them if Spike hadn't called off the hit," said Giles. "One has to make the assumption that they won't be so easily dissuaded this time."  
"If that's the case, then Leonard definitely needs our protection," said Angel. He turned back to the man. "We will do everything in our power to make sure that you're safe."  
"Wait a minute." Everybody turned to Fred. "I don't mean to say that your life isn't important or nothing, but you said that there were two reasons that you came back here."  
  
"Right." Leonard sighed. "Three weeks ago, I had a humdinger of a vision. This one was a lot clearer and more precise than anything else that I have seen. For one thing, all of you were fighting together. Before I had only seen you divided into two groups. This was the first time I had seen all of you united against a common foe."  
"Could you tell what the enemy was?" asked Willow.  
Leonard shook his head. "No, but there was something clearer than that." He had a grim expression on his face. "You were being badly beaten. Several of you had fallen and it was clear that they were dead. The rest of you all had these grim expressions. It was like you knew that whatever you were facing was serious. And that... when the last of you died, there would be no stopping the end from coming." 


	7. Another Board Room Meeting

Chapter 7  
"You know, maybe we should have made this place into an accounting firm," said Xander. "Dress in three-piece suits, carry calculators, do tax work. Something a little less dangerous, we're really asking for it being in the do-gooding business."  
Most of the people in the board room ignored Xander's flippancy. Willow, however, responded with a smile. She knew that Xander's defense mechanism was his joking and it was comforting to know that it was still intact considering the situation that they were apparently about to enter.  
"All right," Wesley said. "If Leonard is telling the truth then we are in a great deal of danger. The question is do we believe him?"  
"And why wouldn't we?" asked Buffy.  
"Well his story sounds like he's being forthright with us, but I'm not entirely sure how much we can trust it."  
"Why would he lie?" Everyone looked at Buffy. "I know, I know, someone evil could be using him against us, but this is a little too simple for any master villain."  
"It's not just that. " Angel speaking like this came as a surprise. He tried to explain."You just don't develop something as powerful as the gift of foresight without any physical consequences. The way he's telling us, he got it as a gift when he turned twenty-one. Now maybe I've gotten rusty, but I didn't sense any demon coming off him; did you Lorne?"  
Leonard had refused to sing and allow himself to be read. When they had pressed him, saying it would help clear things up, he had replied by saying: "If you don't trust me now, I don't think my singing 'Ol' Man River' is gonna make things better."  
"Of course, I can't tell for sure without a chorus, but I'm pretty sure that there's nothing demony about him," Lorne said.  
"There is precedent for being able to receive visions without having any demon parts," said Fred. Everyone turned to her in surprise.  
"What? Why haven't we heard about this before?" said Gunn.  
"Because most of the sources on this are from Christian texts," said Wesley. . Works which talk about men who have the ability to hear the voice of God."  
"You're saying that this guy is some kind of new Moses or Jesus?"asked Buffy. "Maybe I'm rusty on my religion, but last I checked prophets weren't born in Sunnydale ."  
"I don't know why. Everything else seemed to grow there." said Xander.  
"Another thing is that generally a power of this magnitude appears in previous generations. To go from book seller to prophet isn't the kind of thing that just happens." said Giles.  
"Maybe it does." Everyone turned towards Fred again. "I mean, he said that his uncle suffered some kind of mental breakdown around the time that he was the same age. Maybe he had the gift of foresight, but it was diagnosed as a schizophrenic episode." "That's a hell of an assumption to make on one remark." said Buffy. Wesley looked at Buffy curiously. "Why are you fighting this so much?" "Excuse me?" "Vampires and demons don't phase you. But a man tells you heard God's voice and you think he's certifiable. Why does it bother you?" Buffy turned toward Wesley. "Let me ask you.: Given every thing that has happened over the past two years, do you believe in God?" There was a long silence from the former Watcher. He just looked at Buffy for a long time before finally dropping his eyes.  
"We're getting bogged down by theology," said Robin. "There's a more important issue here. " "Which is?" asked Faith. "Lets say that he has the gift of foresight. Someone of his abilities would be a benefit to somebody. Why on earth would someone send the Order of Taraka after him?"  
"Well if what he is telling us is true, the people who would benefit the most from his visions are us," said Willow, "and we've pissed off our fair share of people."  
"Why are you all playing around what's happening?" The group turned to Andrew in shock. He hadn't said a thing since arriving in the conference room with Fred nearly an hour earlier. No one knew why Fred had unilaterally decided that he should be a part of this meeting, but Willow knew that she wasn't entirely comfortable with him in the room. Nobody had expected him to talk, and certainly no one had expected him to be this hostile.  
As if sensing the open hostility, Andrew tried to sink into the background much. For a brief moment it seemed as if everybody was going to just forget that he had spoken.  
"Dance around," Faith finally said.  
Andrew appeared to be nonplussed. "Great. You have a problem of this magnitude, instead we're quibbling over semantics."  
"Andrew--" Fred started.  
"I'll just say this and then you can all throw me out of here. Leonard has visions in which you all play a central role: it seems pretty clear that he could be a big help to us. Someone on the outside knows this and has targeted him for death. And it doesn't take a super-nerd to figure out that Wolfram and Hart is probably behind it all."  
"And how did you reach that particular conclusion?" Wesley seemed to be the only one capable of speech.  
"Think about it. They as much as anyone else represent pure evil; you're the good guys. You all get killed, evil wins and darkness comes that much closer to taking over the planet." Andrew paused to let all this sink in. "But even if none of this were true, what difference does it make? As it says on your business cards, you help the helpless. This man qualifies. You may not like what Leonard is saying, but it doesn't change anything. At least grant him that courtesy."  
For a long moment, nobody said anything. Even Andrew seemed somewhat shocked at his outburst and again tried to fade into the walls.  
"Ok, first of all, where did you learn to speak like that?" said Buffy. " "Were you channeling William Shatner or Patrick Stewart?"  
"It's the right thing to say. Doesn't matter who said it." .  
"He's right." Everyone turned to Xander. "I agree with Andrew one hundred percent, and damn you for creating a situation where this would ever be possible."  
There was another long pause. "When you put it that way" said Wesley," I guess we don't have much of a choice as to what to do."  
There was a general agreement. Then suddenly everybody began glancing at Willow. Everyone knew the history between her and Andrew, and no one really wanted to agree with something he said without her consent.  
Willow looked directly at him. Then she walked across the room.. "When did you develop such good powers of speech?"  
Andrew seemed a little surprised, then smiled. "Everybody grows up eventually." The two of them looked at each other for a moment, and Willow realized that the boy she had tried to kill only a year ago was gone. The accelerated maturation process that had affected all of the Scoobies had finally reached him.  
"All right. I guess we're helping Leonard," said Angel. As everyone nodded approval, he asked: "Little question, how do we help him?"  
"Well obviously we have to protect him from the Order of Taraka," said Fred.  
"And how do we do that?" asked Giles" The Order is not some monster that we can fight and kill. We are talking about an army of hitmen that can basically disguise themselves as anyone they choose."  
"Yeah, those last two attempts showed a lot of subtlety," said Xander.  
"If I had to guess, those were just warnings," said Wesley. "From the readings, those who work for the Order of Taraka are known for their guile and their intensity. They are more than willing to give their lives to destroy their target, and they will never stop hunting Leonard unless we convince whoever is responsible to take off the hit."  
"Which, since we don't know for sure who is responsible, could make it fairly difficult to figure out who to beat up," said Buffy.  
For a moment the difficulty of the situation seemed to leave everyone at a loss. Then suddenly Willow was struck by an inspiration. She was about to mention it when Fred piped up. "I've got an idea!" When everybody turned to her, Fred blushed a little. "Well, more of a notion than an idea. Actually it's kind of a concept with a practical application..."  
"Fred, you've really got to pull it together when you have something to say," said Buffy.  
"You're right. Okay, here goes. Willow, when you were in  
Sunnydale you cast a lot of locator spells. Trying to find people and potential Slayers and such."  
Willow nodded. She had an idea where Fred was going.  
"Well, why don't we use a modified version of a locator spell to track down members of the Order of Taraka. "said Fred. "If they're in L.A. --- and the way they've been tracking Leonard, you gotta figure that they're close--- maybe a spell would tell us where to find them.".  
They all pondered this for a second. "That's a good idea, Fred." said Giles. "But there are a couple of problems. First, members of the Order could be demon or human. Without any real idea as to what were looking for will make it difficult to cast the right spell."  
"And even if we could get it right, most locator spells only tell you where someone is within the radius of a few miles," added Wesley.  
"Couldn't we modify the spell somehow?" asked Xander.  
"We'd need some kind of personal possession in order to pull it off," said Giles.  
"But we have one." Now they all turned to Faith. "That ring that Leonard took of the Mohra demon."  
They all considered this. "Willow, do you think that this would be enough to work with?" asked Wes.  
"Well if we could change the incantation from one that traces the wearer into anybody who might wear something with this insignia." Willow thought. "I think it might work. Unless..."  
":Can't we find a way to eliminate that word from our vocabulary?" said Gunn. Willow ignored him.  
"Is it possible that they might have some way of distorting magic?"  
Angel shook his head. "No, the Order of Taraka doesn't believe in cloaking spells or for that matter camouflage. They hide themselves only when it suits their purposes."  
"Then maybe we can pull this off." Buffy looked to Wesley and then to Angel. For a moment, there was awkwardness. For all of the work that they done the past month, they had yet to lead some kind of action against a viable threat, and no one was quite sure who was in charge.  
Wesley spoke: "Willow, get your magic materials together. We need to prepare a modified locator spell for Los Angeles. We've got to be precise enough to find the exact location."  
"I'm on it."  
Buffy turned to Gunn. "Gunn, get a couple of Slayers together. The Order of Taraka can be tricky, so choose the best ones."  
"Gotcha." Gunn turned around. "Faith."  
"You want me?" A very strange expression crossed Gunn's face before she added: "To help you."  
Whatever expression had been there was gone. "These assassins sound like trouble. I think we need all the firepower that we can handle." He turned to Buffy. "After we load up, you'll know where to go?"  
Buffy nodded and turned to her left facing Angel. "I think we have to make the assumption that were going to find more than one assassin."  
"You're probably right. Who else do you want to send out?"  
Buffy hesitated for a moment. "Me." Again they all looked to the blonde slayer in surprise.  
Willow spoke first. "You sure about this Buffy? : I mean you haven't fought a demon in a few weeks."  
"I know that. But it's like riding a bike."  
"Buffy you never successfully rode a bike in your life." Buffy glared at Dawn who had been quiet until now.--- something she wouldn't have minded her doing more often. She ignored her sister who was now grinning at her own wit..  
"Besides, I've fought the Order before and beaten them. I need to be out there." "You're not doing this by yourself," said Angel. He was trying to sound unconcerned but there wasn't a person in the board room who didn't know the subtext. "I'm coming with you."  
There was a long pause. "Angel...."  
"It's just demon fighting. We've done it a hundred times before. We can do it now."  
Buffy seemed to ponder this for a second longer "All right. But this is a group thing. Robin, Fred you're both coming too."  
"Gotcha."  
"OK." Both spoke quickly, neither quite sure what they were getting into.  
Buffy then turned to her right.. "Xander, take a Slayer you trust and get Leonard. I need you to get him somewhere safe."  
"Like this massive building isn't secure enough?"  
"There are too many people here. The Order's bold, and they're definitely not afraid of the frontal assault. If they come here people might get hurt."  
Xander nodded. "Lorne." The demon turned. "We're going to take Leonard to Caritas."  
"Okay..." Lorne said slowly. "Don't take this the wrong way but I'm not wild about inviting another 'guest' there, especially when they're still working out the kinks in the anti-violence spells. Why can't we hide them in the Hyperion ?"  
"Lorne, Caritas is a closed off location that we know about and that we can secure easily." Xander spoke as if he had been the one going there for three years, instead of the people of Angel Investigations. Given what she had heard of what had happened there before, Willow could understand Lorne's trepidation. "The Hyperion is too large and has too many points of entry. We need a smaller location."  
The green demon sighed "You're right. Well let's hope this is the one night of the year that roving street gangs don't stage a home invasion." He and Xander started out to the door.  
"What's my job?" asked Dawn.  
"You're not going to like it." said Buffy  
"I'm a big girl. I can take it,"  
"I need you to take the other Slayers and handle any of the other business that comes in. There are a few other things that need the attention of somebody, and you are as well qualified as anyone to do it."  
Dawn looked at her somewhat surprised "Buffy, I..."  
"Dawn," Giles spoke up, "this is a great responsibility. We're asking you to take control of the business of Angel-Slayer, Inc. For a few hours you're going to be helping us a great deal."  
Dawn immediately brightened. "Okay. Thanks."  
"Just try not to set fire to the building." quipped Buffy.  
"All right, let's get moving." said Angel and started to the door  
"Wait!" Everyone stopped and looked at Buffy. "One last thing: I don't know if the assassins will be working together or alone, but try to leave one of them alive."  
There was some sounds of disapproval and cries of "Why?"  
"We need to find out who set them on Leonard in the first place. But more than that, we need to send a message to the Order of Taraka. I don't think a corpse will be enough. We need someone breathing who can tell those in charge who's running the show." 


	8. Midnight Ride

Chapter 8  
Despite the attitude that Buffy'd had when she came to Angel with her idea of working together, she'd had some qualms about working at a place that had not only plotted against him, but had at least once tried to kill her -- and they probably would have attempted to more often if she had visited L.A. more. But she had to admit their working together had its benefits. For one thing she probably wouldn't have been able to travel to a source of evil in a 2004 Dodge Viper if Angel hadn't had this job.  
She didn't think much of cars, mainly because her own driving was abysmal, but she had to admit that there were some real kick-ass cars in the garage of Wolfram and Hart. Angel still seemed a little reluctant to use anything except his convertible (a car which, in her opinion, he had no business driving) but the others had been more than willing to use them. Fred had tactfully pointed out that it would be hard to be secretive when the entire world can see you. And Angel's car wasn't equipped with the automobile equivalent of stealth technology----- another cutting edge bonus of the evil law firm.  
"Do we know how much further?" Angel asked.  
"According to the map, three more blocks," Buffy answered.  
It had taken more contortions than usual to make the locator spells work, and even when they had finally gotten them to work they hadn't been able to reduce the possibilities down to three locations. Gunn, Kennedy and Willow had gone down to the one in Pasadena. Faith, Wesley, and one of the other Slayers had headed to Baldwin Park. Buffy's group was heading towards Fullerton, where the biggest cache of demons could supposedly be found. The third location was a demon rich neighborhood, however, so it was hard to tell if the Order had a lot of assassins there or whether they were seeing normal demon activity. In any case, they had moved out.  
She and Angel had only made one exchange, beside the last one. The first had been when Buffy had turned the radio on. "Could we not hear that?" Angel had said.

"You don't like Mariah Carey?" Buffy had asked.

"I just don't think its appropriate to have music that cheerful when we're about to face the forces of darkness." "

I supposed you'd rather listen to 'Helter Skelter' or 'Sympathy for the Devil'" said Buffy only half-joking. "

It's not her music that's the problem. I just don't like listening to people Wolfram and Hart used to represent."

Buffy took this in. "Seriously?"

"According to Lorne, not only did she sell her soul for her first recording contract, she sacrificed at least one friend to ensure that 'Glitter' got made and released."

"I knew it. No other way that film gets greenlighted, let alone released in theaters." Buffy was about to ask questions about Brittany Spears or Beyonce Knowles but then finally got that Angel was not in a talkative mood. She was pretty quiet after that. Whether Robin and Fred had noticed the atmosphere in the car and decided not to interrupt it, or whether they were just afraid of having a private conversation when Angel could hear them was unclear. In any case neither had not spoken since they had left.

Left with time to think Buffy found herself amazed that, for all the talking they had done about how both of them had grown over the past two years, it had taken them less than a month to get back into the holding pattern that their relationship had been in her senior year of high school. They had been dancing around each other, knowing there was a lot to be said but still not saying it. Perhaps it was because she was still feeling so fragile after what had happened to Spike, but they still seemed unable to talk about themselves. There was an obvious solution to this, of course,and that was to talk about it now. However, Buffy didn't think that she should bring it up when a) they were about to do battle with evil and b) someone else would hear them. She wondered if she had, perhaps without even knowing it, asked Fred and Robin to join them for just that purpose. What she didn't know was why Angel, who had never been the type to do with others what he could do by himself, had gone along with getting help.. Well, this at least she could talk about.  
"Angel, why did..."  
"We're here. " Shit. She had never known how fast Angel could drive. "I think we had better walk it from here."  
They opened the doors and got the weapons ready. All of them were armed with a staking device that Angel had developed in his first year in L.A. They wore heavy coats in order to cover the spring-loaded stakes under their shirts. A simple movement and the stakes were out. Robin was carrying a battle-ax, Fred a modified tazer-rifle and Angel a kitana. Buffy was armed with a comparatively small crossbow, but as the others could testify, she was the one who needed the least arming. She was the deadly weapon.  
"All right," said Angel. He was trying for a 'buisness as usual' attitude but Buffy knew him well enough to sense that something was a little off "According to the spell the assassin or assassins were holed up in one of the buildings on this block. This is a pretty demon-infested neighborhood."  
"That's not quite right." They turned to Fred. "I mean, neighborhoods are not particularly demon heavy. Most demons prefer to live in abandoned buildings or underground. The idea that a demon would be openly living in one of the houses is, if you'll pardon the phrase, preposterous."  
"She's right," said Buffy. "According to the specs all of the residents of this area are human. Of course it doesn't rule out the possibility that they could be members of the Order of Taraka."  
"We've got some info on who does," Angel said, taking out a piece of paper. "Everybody who has been living here has been here for at least a year. However, that house was put on the market a month ago." He pointed to an undistinguished brownstone about two blocks away.  
"Any particular reason why we think demons might live there?" asked Robin.  
Buffy pointed to the sidewalk next to the building. There was an open manhole. "Convenient sewer access. A vampire's dream."  
"Yeah, or maybe the area is under maintenance. The last thing that we want to do is break the door open and scare the crap out of some homeless guy," said Robin  
"He's right. Besides, I don't think the direct approach would get the best results." said Angel.  
"All right then. Someone has to do some reconnaissance. "  
"I guess that's me. Robin, would you mind backing me up?"  
Buffy turned to Angel in surprise. She had expected Angel to ask her to go. Even Robin seemed to be less shocked than she.  
"Angel, are you sure..." she started but Fred, of all people, interrupted: "He's probably right. I mean ,if there are demons there and they see you, they'll take it as a sign to clear out and then we're back where we started. Subterfuge is the name of the game."  
For a moment Buffy considered fighting this, then decided it wasn't worth the time. Besides she wasn't in charge any more. She shot Angel a disapproving look which he seemed to ignore. "All right, but be subtle. No more then ten minutes there and back."  
Angel and Robin both nodded. The vampire and the former principal slipped quietly into the shadows.  
For a moment, an awkward silence hung over the normally talkative Fred and Buffy.  
"Well I guess that means that we have a few minutes to...prepare," Buffy said slowly.  
"I know. Maybe we can discuss, oh I don't know, your relationship with Angel."  
Buffy stared at Fred in shock.  
"Please. I may have spent five years in a demon dimension but that doesn't mean I've completely forgotten about human nature."  
Buffy looked at Fred, this time with admiration. "I guess you really are as smart as everyone says."  
"So why did you ask Robin and me to come with you? And don't tell me it's because you wanted back-up. I've seen Angel fight, and you're a Slayer. That should be more than enough to take out a pack of demons."  
"It's been a few months and..." Fred fixed her with a glance that she had formally associated with Giles and Wesley "....that's not going to fly, is it?" said Buffy.  
"No it won't. Why did you want us to be your chaperones?" asked Fred.  
Buffy thought about it, really thought about it, for a second. "How much do you know about our...relationship?"  
"You were the love of his life," Fred said simply. "I know that he was devastated by your dying. And when he heard that you were alive again I saw something in his eyes that I never saw about anything else." She paused. "I know that the last year and a half have been shaky for both of y'all, and he's had his share of highs and lows, but he still loves you with all his heart."  
Buffy replayed what Fred had said in her mind. "You said 'were.'  
Fred looked flustered for a moment. "Well, I meant to say 'are'. Y'know how I babble some times...wrong word just popped right out."  
"Is there someone else?" There was an ache deep within her that she hadn't felt in a while.  
"No. There was a time when he might have loved someone else, but there's no chance of that now."  
Buffy knew that there was more to this, but she also knew it was wrong to force Fred. "So you know about us."  
"Well, I got the story in dribs and drabs two years ago from Cordelia and Wesley. Willow told me the rest earlier."  
"We never had a real relationship. We never dated in the conventional sense. It was more like we'd get together, demons attack, we kill them, we check each other for bruises. That was going out for us." She tried to be glib, but inwardly she was starting to really think about some things that she hadn't dealt with in a long time  
"Well fighting with someone-- I mean fighting along side someone can stir up mighty powerful emotions. I mean, when there's a possibility that you might die, social graces go out the window." Fred smiled, but it was clear that she was trying to be serious too.  
"Yeah," Buffy smiled. "That's probably how Cordelia and Xander hooked up in the first place."She reflected for a moment. "Did she tell you about that part of her past?"  
Fred nodded. "She mentioned Xander occasionally. I didn't know all the details until y'all came to stay." Fred gave a small smile. "But that's not the real issue. She shook her head. "But that's not the point. The point is, we can never be intimate. Our love was doomed when I was in high school, and if our relationship is based solely on how much we're willing to fight for each other, we have no chance together."  
"So me and Robin are here so that if things get too violent, y'all don't start ripping each others clothes off." Fred thought to herself and then stared straight ahead.. "Now there's an image that's gonna linger."  
"I don't think that's exactly what we were worried about, but that's part of it," Buddy said.  
"But when you first came here, you said that you had moved on. That you and Angel could just coexist."  
"I know and I meant it, but you have to understand we've never really had any other kind of relationship and we're still trying to get it together. It's hard to adjust to the idea of us being...coworkers." Buffy said weakly.  
Fred thought about it for a moment. "Look, I'm the last person who should be giving advice on romance, but I'll try anyway. What it comes down to is this: Do you still love him?"  
Now that the question had been put to her directly, Buffy thought it would take a long while to answer. It took seventeen seconds. "Not the way that I did when high school was over, but, yes, I still love him."  
"Then you need to tell him. You need to learn his feelings. Try and see if he still loves you, then figure the rest out."  
"All right...say he loves me. What then? The problem's still the same, we can't be together ever."  
"Maybe not now, but there might be a way out."  
Now Buffy was baffled. She was about to say such, when she realized that a lot of time had passed. She looked at her watch. "We gave them ten minutes, right?"  
"Yes, but that was..." Fred looked at her watch ".... thirteen minutes ago. Oh crap."  
"We'd better go." They both began running. As they got closer to the house, they could hear banging and pounding. Buffy had gotten pretty good at recognizing the sounds of battle, and that was the sound of bodies hitting walls. She hoped that they weren't the bodies that she feared they were.  
  
------------- 


	9. Showing Their Teeth

Chapter 9  
Angel had been doing variations of reconnaissance for quite some time. The ideal method was to try to keep out of sight of whatever man, vampire or other life form was looking for you. When he saw a demon standing guard over the front door of the house, he realized that this was probably where the Order of Taraka was calling home. So the ideal thing do have done would have been to wait until its back was turned then go back to Buffy and Fred.  
In fact, that was what he did. Unfortunately he had not identified the guard as a Skilosh demon. One of its distinguishing features an eye in the back of its head. Further, it was more acute than the normal ones, so even though they were running fast through the darkness, three seconds after Angel and Robin started running back to the others a piercing scream split the night air.  
"Well so much for getting out quietly," Angel said as he turned to face the Skilosh in front of them.  
Even if you're a vampire, or a man who has been fighting demons for twenty years for that matter , a Skilosh demon poses a pretty problem: No matter where you're standing it's fairly hard to surprise it. You had to attack it from the side and Darwin's theory of evolution were knocked out the window because equally well on either side. It was tough enough when the demon was alone -- which they rarely were. The only good thing was that the rest of the house were not Skilosh demons as well.  
That was a small comfort to Angel and Robin, however, particularly when there were eight assassins. Three of them looked like they could go ten rounds with Holyfield and not break a sweat. Worse, those were the humans; the demonic killers were even nastier.  
Angel noticed all this in a fraction of a second -- he was focused on not getting his head torn off by the Skilosh. The last time he had killed one of these he'd had to use of a truck and a sledgehammer. Since neither item were handy he decided it might be in his best interest to try and take it out some other way.  
Maneuvering quickly, he managed to get directly behind it. Then, before it could turn, he brought one of his stakes out. In one swift motion he slammed the stake into the third eye.  
The Skilosh let out a scream of pain that would normally bring out the neighborhood. Angel hoped that they would continue to exercise their already sound judgment and stay put.  
This demon was out of the picture. Angel had exactly two seconds to savor the victory before he was rushed by a man and a blue demon with grey claws.  
He was thrown against the wall. Even as he got to his feet he was bemused by what he saw. So was Robin, who had hit the wall a few seconds earlier but was now standing.  
"Demons and humans fighting together," he said. "Martin Luther King would be so proud."  
"I guess we can all get along," said Angel before launching himself back into the fray.  
One of the men moved in to try and take him down. Angel switched to a defensive posture ---- he still had issues when it came to attacking people. The man pulled out a sword that would do Zorro proud and moved in. Suddenly Angel had fewer compunctions about hurting him. He drew his own blade and moved in.  
The man handled the sword very well. Had Angel been human he would have been in serious trouble, but as it was his vampiric agility barely kept him from being hurt. He matched the swordsman parry for parry and thrust for thrust. Then suddenly he detected something out of the corner of his eye. He had just enough time to duck before the blue demon – it looked like a Fortas -- nailed him with a hard blow that knocked him against the wall again. Before he had time to duck, the man with a sword ran him through.  
Though it was a documented fact that vampires could survive anything but fire, a stake through the heart and decapitation there was little written mention that everything that would normally killed a person hurts vampires almost as much. And the cliché that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger really didn't apply to those kinds of attacks. Angel barely had enough time to get used to the horrible pain in his stomach before the swordsman pulled out his blade in one swift motion and attempted to cut off Angel's head.  
He managed to duck and lift his own sword up in a defensive posture. Angel tried not to show it, but he was beginning to worry. He could probably still take the swordsman, but the Fortas demon would be a serious problem even if he was healthy. Furthermore, these attackers were smarter then the average flunkies in that they weren't playing by the rules that said one on one combat was standard for most attacks. if who was healthy? and altho it's perfectly fine the way it is, consider dropping "that had driven him against the wall"  
He looked towards Robin and saw that he probably wasn't going to get much help from him. Two of the demons -- Polgara and a Howler by the looks of it -- and one of the men were putting up an attack. Robin was doing an admirable job of defending himself considering that Polgaras were tough, but this one was almost out of the battle. Eventually, though, he would be overrun.  
Which was exactly what happened to himself as a third equally fearsome demon moved in and started to attack him. Angel held up as long as he could but finally dropped his sword.  
The demons all crowded around him. The blue one spoke: "This is an unexpected bonus. We get to kill the vampire with a soul."  
"So you've heard of me," Angel said in a much weaker tone than he would have liked.  
"Yeah, and it looks like you and your friend picked the wrong crowd to mess with," said the other demon. "Your moves may work on the average demon, but as you can see we're better than the average demon.".  
"Good line. Put it on your recruitment poster."  
"Joking to the last. Shame it has to end this way."  
"Who said it does?" Everyone turned toward the voice. All four demons- --- the two would have been assaulting Robin and the two that had him in a bind--- were surprised. The only reason that Angel was that the voice wasn't who he expected.  
Fred stood there. She might have been a fearsome sight if the gun she was carrying didn't seem bigger than she was.  
"Well, well," said the Fortas. "Little lady with a big gun. What do you think you're gonna do with that thing?"  
"Get away from Angel if you don't want to find out." Fred's voice was steely cold.  
"You're gonna have to fire a lot of shots to take me down, girl."  
"Actually, if I calibrated this thing correctly, one will be more than enough.." She flipped a switch and the gun began humming.  
The two demons began moving closer to Fred, almost stalking her.. "You really think you can take us both out?" one said.  
"Well, I've never tried it like that before but I find in some cases..." She pulled the trigger. A concentrated laser of roughly 5,000 volts of electricity emerged from the gun. The two demons got one step closer before the power of the beam cooked them like meat on a barbecue. Angel could feel the electricity was still in the air when the blast was finished  
".... live fire tests are the best," Fred finished.  
The swordsman's concentration had broken, giving Angel enough time to take his own blade, disarm the swordsman and knock him out cold.He turned to Fred. "Not that I don't appreciate the help, but next time could you maybe fry the villains BEFORE they run me through  
Fred did her best to look flustered. "Hey, I thought you could take these guys yourself, Mr. Vampire-who-fights-alone-whenever-he-can."  
Ignoring her rebuke, which actually made some sense, he turned around: "Buffy decided that you could handle these guys with my help." Fred continued.' She doubled back to take the other side of the alley."  
Angel turned around to see Buffy moving like a whirling dervish as she managed to knock out the two other men and finish off the Howler demon in less than two minutes since she had arrived. Robin had recovered his bearings, managing to kill the Polgara. This left a single demon who, showing an incredible amount of sense, had begun to run away. Angel was about to let it get away when he realized that he knew this one. Not just what it was, but who.  
"Buffy! Stop him!" Buffy hesitated for a fraction of a second before pulling out her crossbow. She was about to fire when he yelled: "Don't kill him." Again Buffy only hesitated a second before firing a shot into the calf of the demons leg. It seized up and stopped running.  
Angel finally reached Buffy who looked a little perturbed. "All right, I stopped him; want to tell me why?"  
"Because we're old friends. Battle companions, wouldn't you say Tom?"  
"Tom?" Robin, who had caught up with them, asked in a perplexed tone. "What kind of demon name is 'Tom'?"  
"He and I were once trapped in an Octavian fighting ring together. Had a hell of a right hook. I knew you were a soulless killer, I just didn't think you'd do it for hire."  
Tom Cribb turned and spit at Angel. The vampire quickly dodged the spittle -- not because it was toxic, but because you just can't get spit out of a leather duster.  
"Well it's not like I had a lot of options. You try getting a sales position with a face like this."  
"Can't argue with that." said Robin  
Buffy moved towards him and pushed him to the ground. "Well I guess working for the Order of Taraka was the only place hiring the crème de la crème of demons these days. I got to tell you I'm disappointed. I kind of figured you'd be... tougher."  
"Great, The Slayer herself. How does it feel to be just one of many? You know people were scared at you when there was just one of you. Now that you're nobody special no one will even notice when you fall."  
"If that's the case why'd you make like a cheetah when you saw me?"  
"You have to have pretty big ones to go after a Slayer alone. Besides, I've had enough one-on-ones to last me a lifetime."  
"Oh I get it, you're one of those macho creeps who thinks five against one is a fair fight," said Fred. "And they say that demons have no social skills."  
"Quite a mouth on that one. I'd like to see how big you'd talk without that jazzed-up super soaker."  
"Angel, is there a reason you had us spare this one?" said Robin.  
"Yeah, Buffy said that she wanted us to make an example of an assassin to show the Order who's in charge." Angel turned to Buffy. "I can't think of a better demon for the job."  
"And you know a lot of people at Angel-Slayer Inc. had..." Buffy fumbled for the word, "....misgivings about torturing a human. I don't think any of them would mind if we messed this one up a little." She gave the demon an icy grin.  
The smug impression on Cribb's face began to fade. "You mean that... No, you're the good guys. You don't do that kind of thing."  
"You're half right," said Angel. "Sure we are, but we're not foolish enough to think that evil's playing Marquis de Queensbury rules. Sometimes you have to fight dirty to get the right results." He looked at the others. "Let's get started. Fred, you have it?"  
Fred reached into her pocket and pulled out a vial and a syringe.  
"What ya gonna do, dose me with truth serum?" asked Cribb snidely.  
"Nothing so crude, Mr. Cribb. I'm betting that someone in your position has had few encounters with pharmaceuticals." Fred began to fill the syringe. "Baraglite is a hospital drug used to relieve pressure on the lungs in people with cancer. When you inject it into a healthy person, however, the reaction's different. Doesn't kill you right away. No, the pressure in your lungs increases until you feel like you're suffocating."  
"So what? That's if you used it on a person. A demon's lungs can take a lot before we cave."  
"I'm aware of that. Which is why this particular baraglite is ten times what you'd normally use." Fred finished filling the syringe. "This drug has never been fully tested, but y'all seem to be the perfect guinea pig."  
Cribb was beginning to panic. "You're bluffing. Even if something like that existed what would you be doing with it?"  
"We run Wolfram and Hart now, Tom," Angel said. "That gave us access to all their clients in L.A. and you would be surprised how many drug companies we now service and what they have developed." He turned to Fred, waiting to give her the OK.. "Of course, we won't have to go through any of this if you'd be willing to talk."  
"What do you want to know?" asked Cribb.  
"Who hired you to go after Leonard Kopell?"  
"Who?"  
"Don't play dumb with us. The man the Order told you to kill."  
"Hey, me and my friends are just hired help. They give us a target, we go after it. We don't ask questions. That's why we work as well as we do."  
It sounded plausible. Under other circumstances Angel might even have believed him, but based on what he knew about the Order the assassins got full information about who they would collect their money from. They had to at least have an idea why they were going after someone. That and Angel didn't really trust Cribb.  
"That your final answer?" said Buffy.  
"That's all that I know."  
"Well then you leave us with no other choice." Angel nodded at Fred. "Do it."  
Cribb began to struggle. Buffy yanked on the arrow still lodged in his leg . His scream of pain gave Fred enough time to inject him.  
For a moment there was no reaction. Then Cribb began to have trouble breathing and started trembling.  
"Doesn't feel too good, does it?" said Buffy. "Feels like you're drowning but you're still dry."  
"It's gonna feel worse, when your lungs begin to collapse," Angel said. "I never really appreciated breathing when I was alive but it's one of those things you miss when it's gone."  
"And this can go on for a while," Fred him. "I mean it's only going to take fifteen to twenty minutes before your lungs collapse but it's gonna feel like days."  
Cribb was frantically gasping for air. He had begun to paw at Angel and Buffy. They waited another few seconds.  
"We can make it stop, you know. Just tell us who hired you." Angel sounded as coldly reasonable as anyone who had worked at Wolfram and Hart.  
"They'll... They'll kill me," Cribb gasped weakly.  
"Well then I guess we're sparing them the time and energy," said Buffy. They began to turn away from him, all with seeming no more interest than if he was an insect.  
"Wait...wait..."  
Angel turned around.  
"The man... said his name was Lee Mercer."  
"Why did he want Leonard dead?" Buffy asked.  
"He said that he represented a ... a group of power people.... who said it was against their interests... if he met with you." Cribb said weakly.  
"And killing us? Was that part of the deal?" said Faith.  
"They said...if you were to die... wouldn't be unhappy."  
Angel leaned in. "Did Wolfram and Hart hire you?"  
Cribb shook his head. "He told us... that it was someone.... higher up ." He grabbed Angel's collar. "For God's sake, stop this!"  
"We don't have to, Tom." said Buffy.  
"But you're.... you're the good guys. You can't be this.... cruel," said Cribb.  
"Sometimes the good guys have to play dirty." said Angel.  
"And you misunderstood what she meant," said Fred. "We don't have to help you, 'cause in a few minutes, you'll be fine."  
Cribb looked up in astonishment. "What?"  
"There's no such thing as demon strength-baraglite. That was a big dose of the normal stuff. It'll wear off in about...two minutes." Even as Fred spoke, Cribb began to breathe easier.  
"You...bastards... I'll...I'll..."  
"Before you finish that curse perhaps you should remember that we are more than capable of killing you in a very nasty fashion," said Buffy.  
Cribb swallowed deeply. Angel bent over him. "Now here's what's going to happen. We're going to leave quietly. Once we're gone, you will go back to your bosses and tell them that the hit is off Leonard Kopell. If he so much as catches a cold, we will find you, your bosses and anyone else that you associate with and fall upon them with the wrath of God. And I'm talking the Old Testament, fire and brimstone God. He is under the protection of Angel-Slayer Inc. That means he's off limits. Are we clear?"  
"Crystal."  
Angel began walking away.  
"I'll call the others. Tell them the search is over," said Fred.  
"You think this is over?" Angel and Buffy turned back to Cribb who had regained hi defiant look even though he was still struggling to breathe. "There's more going on here than just Kopell. By the time it is over, you'll wish that you'd died here."  
Angel just turned around and walked away, without giving away the slightest hint that he thought the demon might be right.  
  



	10. Arrivals and Departures

Chapter 10  
  
It took them nearly an hour to reassemble themselves in the boardroom, and another fifteen minutes to get the story on their tango with the Order of Taraka from Buffy and the others. Their reaction was akin to 'Not again.'  
"Didn't we just get through fighting a great evil?" Gunn asked. "Don't we even get a break between Apocalypses?"  
"Actually, its been nearly six weeks," said Xander, "which is more time then we usually get."  
"And we're sure that it was Wolfram & Hart who hired the Order of Taraka?" said Wesley.  
"Yes," said Angel. "No," from Buffy.  
Everybody looked at the two of them.  
"Well that clears that up," said Dawn. "Look, didn't you people get a verbal agreement from Wolfram & Hart that they wouldn't interfere with the LA office?"  
The Angel Investigations crowd looked at each other for a while. "Yes," Fred finally admitted reluctantly.  
"And you don't think that they'd live up to it?" asked Willow.  
"Yes because evil forces have never been known to lie to us before," Angel said, sarcastically. "Look Lee Mercer used to work for Wolfram & Hart. If what Fred said about Sunnydale is true, then they're still up to no good. They have to have done it."  
"And I'm saying that those aren't the only possibilities," said Buffy in a resigned tone. "I know that they've been the enemy for a very long time, but we all know that there are other equally dangerous things out there who might have commissioned the hit on Leonard."  
"And who are capable of making the dead work for them," said Willow quietly.  
They all pondered the potential horrors behind this. "You don't think..." said Xander.  
"Before we jump to any conclusions, I think that it's pertinent to remember that there are any number of shapeshifting demons who are capable of pulling off what Willow is insinuating." said Giles.  
"That's all well and good, but all this means we still don't have any idea who is behind this and what this big nasty that we're going to have to fight." said Faith. "How are we supposed to prepare ourselves if we don't even know what were fighting?"  
Giles was about to say something pragmatic about how they could figure this out, when suddenly a new voice added: "There is an easier way to find out."  
All the eyes in the room shifted towards the source near the back. It was a tall, well dressed man with beady eyes and black hair. At least it appeared to be black hair...You couldn't because most of the back of the mans head was missing. There was also a very small hole in the front of the head that could only have come from a gunshot wound. No one seemed even remotely shocked that the newcomer had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. What concerned them was what he might represent. Giles had never wished to see a ghost before, but compared to the alternative he hoped that it was.  
Buffy was the first to recover. "This is starting to get old," she said without any trace of fear in your voice.  
"So you're the one who has brought all of this trouble to our door. I must say, I thought you'd be... Bigger." The man didn't speak calmly and coolly as the First had, rather he seemed ironically amused.  
"You don't recognize me." Buffy seemed surprised.  
"Well I saw the photos. Believe me they don't do you justice."  
"I'm sorry," said Fred, "but have y'all met before?"  
"No we haven't. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lee Mercer. I work for Wolfram & Hart."  
There was an instant of relief before the tension returned. "So you're really..." Willow began.  
"Quite dead," said Mercer calmly.  
"You know if these standard perpetuity clauses really are forever, you'd think they'd at least neaten you up a bit," said Gunn.  
For a moment, the smile on Mercer's face faded. "Normally they do, but one small infraction and they leave it to serve as a warning. It doesn't hurt, of course, but people do tend to focus on it."  
"All right," said Angel, "so you have to wear a hat in public. I'm having a real hard time working up sympathy for someone who tried to have us killed."  
"Actually we didn't tell them specifically to kill you. We just said to stop anyone who tries to help Leonard."  
"That's semantic nonsense and you know it!" said Wesley.  
"Yes, said Mercer, "but when you're in our profession, phrasing is everything."  
"Wolfram & Hart gave us their word that they would not interfere with the Los Angeles office," said Fred. "How can you stand there and say you're not interfering?"  
"We are living up to our agreement. However just because we said we wouldn't interfere doesn't mean that we won't stop representing clients who might have interests contrary to yours."  
Everybody took this in. "And which client was involved here?" Faith asked.  
Mercer again flashed an insincere smile. "Attorney-client privilege prevents me from revealing their identity, but suffice it to say he is someone higher up the food chain than you."  
"Don't you mean lower down?" said Angel.  
"Potayto, potahto." said Mercer coyly.  
"All right now that you've finished being cute, what are you doing here?" said Buffy.  
"Just to let you know that the people who ordered the hit on Leonard Kopell have been persuaded to call it off."  
"Well that was pretty fast considering we only sent the message through Cribb about an hour and a half ago," said Giles.  
"In the computer age messages can be transmitted in moments. Besides," said Mercer, "people close to the individual in question managed to persuade him that it would be inefficient and a drain of manpower to continue to seek Mr. Kopell's death while you were guarding him.".  
They all considered the implications of this.. "Where are the strings?" asked Xander.  
"Our client has made it perfectly clear that by confounding his interests, you have deterred his work. And well... He hasn't put you on his Christmas card list."  
"Great," said Buffy "so now we have another enemy and we don't know who."  
"Well.." said Mercer, "in the interest of full disclosure, I think that you need to know that you have made a lot of enemies. Several of them right here in L.A."  
"And what did we do to piss these people off?" said Willow  
"You didn't return their phone calls." Responding to their looks of surprise, Mercer said, "When Wolfram & Hart gave you the L. A. branch, they gave you the L.A. Branch. All the clients, not just the ones that you thought were worthy of your time."  
"You know who some of these clients are?" said Willow scornfully. She had gone through the client list and knew who some of the more high-profile ones were.  
"Of course we are familiar with the level of contempt you have for them, but the fact remains they require representation of their interests. Failure to do so will result in a violation of our agreement."  
"In other words we represent this scum or you kick us out," Wesley said.  
"I wouldn't put it in such crass terms, but that's correct," Mercer answered.  
"Wait you said we'd made a lot of enemies. Do you represent any of them?" asked Angel.  
Again Mercer flashed that insincere smile. "Attorney-client privilege prevents me from..."  
"Yeah, yeah you can't tell us. Are these people, who shall remain nameless, going to be after us?"  
"We have every intention of keeping up our end of the bargain. We can not, however, be expected to be held responsible for the actions of clients who may not be as inclined to be reasonable." Everybody took this in. "Well, that's all I had to say. Keep up the good work and you shouldn't have any problems. Just walk very carefully."  
"Yeah, we'd never have figured that out on our own." said Gunn  
Mercer turned around, "Be seeing you," and walked out the door.  
"You honestly expect us to just take this? Come back here, you son of a--" Faith walked out the door after Mercer. Giles thought he knew what was going to happen and wasn't surprised when she returned seconds later.  
"Gone?" asked Angel.  
"Like the wind," said Faith.  
"It's not like he would have given us much more information," said Wesley. "We know how infuriatingly vague messengers of evil can be."  
"Could he have been any vaguer?" said Xander. "We still have no idea who ordered the hit on Leonard. Wolfram & Hart might have, but at this point I don't know if we can take anything they say seriously. Something very evil is out there and we have no idea who or what. We only know that it's big and nasty, which narrows it down to a couple of million. And now we have to represent all of the clients this office works with in L.A. Or risk a threat to our safety."  
"And your point is..." said Giles.  
Xander paused. "I didn't really have one. I just thought we needed to review."  
"So what do we do now?" Dawn asked. They all considered this for a moment. And then Giles realized that there was only one course of action open to them. "We keep doing what we've started. If things are as grave as we think, we will need Slayers and Watchers to be working at full tilt as soon as possible." He looked at Willow. "Willow, do we still have the complete list of clients in L.A. on file?"  
"Yeah, I always keep back ups. And, now that you mention it, a lot of former clients have been calling recently without us responding." Said Willow  
"All right, we'll have to meet with them and smooth things over with those who may feel the most wounded."  
"And if they're as evil as we think?" asked Fred.  
Angel responded: "We'll have to walk a fine line with them. But we've been doing that for a while."  
"What about Leonard?" Buffy asked. She turned to Lorne. "Did you get any kind of read on him at Caritas?"  
"He's not a demon. He's got a real cowardice complex. And he sings a mean 'Broken Hallelujah.'" Lorne said. "Besides that I can't really tell much about his future or whatever this big threat might be."  
Buffy looked at the others. "He came here for a reason. Even if the threat on his life is gone, we can't just let him walk out."  
They all thought about this. "We put him on salary," said Wesley. "He'll work with me and Willow in the prophecy department. When he has visions -- and I'm betting they'll come now that he's met us -- we'll figure out the next step then."  
"Xander, do you think that we can work with him?" Buffy asked. The youngest man in the room seemed a little surprised that he was being asked.  
"He seems like a decent enough guy. I think that we may need to hold his hand a little, but I think that he could contribute in a big way."  
"Okay...does anyone have a problem with Angel-Slayer hiring Leonard?" Buffy asked. No one said anything. "All right. Wes, this is your baby, you think that you can tell him?"  
Wesley nodded. "I think that the best thing for the rest of to do would be to get back to work."  
"Then let's get going." The board members of Angel-Slayer slowly walked out of the room. As he left, Giles realized that the sensation of dread and anticipation that had become second nature to him in Sunnydale was back with a vengeance. In a weird way, he welcomed that feeling; it was familiar enough for him to live with. But a part of him had hoped and prayed that he could have lived without ever feeling it again.   
"Angel..." Buffy spoke to him as he was leaving the room. The tone was normal but it still sent chills up his spine. "Could you stay there for a moment?" He tried to stay calm hoping that somehow his friends wouldn't notice that he and Buffy were going to be alone in the same room together. Then he tried to remain calm since he noticed that he and Buffy would be alone in the same room together.  
She waited until the room was empty save for the two of them, then she turned off her pager and cell phone at her belt. "Would you mind?"  
For a second he didn't get it. Then he started fumbling around his own pockets and hoped he did the same with his own pager and cell phone. Though he was over 275 years old, he still had problems with modern technology.  
Buffy picked up the phone in the room, and pressed nine. "Melissa, could you make sure that nobody disturbs us for the next, um... Until I say so." She turned off the ringer..  
"I could never remember her name," Angel said trying to lighten the somberness which had suddenly settled.  
A smile briefly lit her face. "What can I say? I'm a people person." The smile disappeared. "You understand why I'm doing this."  
"Yeah. I do." For a moment, there was silence. "Don't know about you but I haven't been looking forward to this conversation."  
"Tell me about it. I wouldn't mind a big monster breaking the door down right now." Both of them smiled...and looked towards the door anyway.  
"You're not going to like everything I'm going to tell you," said Angel. "I probably won't like what you're going to tell me. But if we are going to work together, if we're going to coexist in the same place..."  
"...We need to know what's happened," Buffy finished. "Okay." They fell silent. "I'll go first," she said, "mainly because my story's a little shorter. It starts when they brought me back...."  
  
When Wesley thought about it later, he realized how used he had gotten, over the past couple of years, to people following his orders without question. He had honestly expected that Leonard would jump at the chance to have a place to work, a source of income and a chance to help fight the good fight.  
After putting it in just those terms, it took Leonard only fifteen seconds to answer. "Thank you, but I'm going to pass."  
Wesley was flustered by this but only for a moment. "Leonard, are you sure you've thought this through?"  
"Gee, have I? I've spent the last six months agonizing over this decision. No, Mr. Wyndham-Price, I do not want to engage in the fight against darkness. I want to go back home and build myself a fortress and never deal with you again."  
Wesley tried a different tack. "Leonard, you've been having vision for nearly four years. You came to us for a reason."  
"Yes, I did. I came to ask for your protection and to warn you of what's going to happen. I've done both these things. Now I'm going to leave with a clear conscience."  
"And that's it? You're just going to leave."  
Leonard stared at him. "Do you demand the assistance of everyone who comes to you for help? I don't owe you a damn thing. I can go to bed with a clear conscience."  
He tried changing tacks again. "Mr. Kopell. You can't just walk away from this. It should be pretty clear to you that the Powers That Be have chosen you for a higher purpose."  
Leonard looked at him. "Well if that's the case, the 'Powers That Be' can go fuck themselves." When he saw Wesley wince, he added quietly: "Are they listening to us?"  
"Quite possibly."  
"Well, then let me repeat:" He looked up: "Fuck off. I have done my duty to them and to you. You can send me as many visions as you want; I don't care. You want to stop me, either they are going to have to physically do it or you're going to have to send someone. Lacking either, I am leaving." He walked towards the door.  
"I knew you were afraid." Wesley whirled around. He hadn't even noticed that Xander was there. "But I find it hard to believe that you would just walk away from this without a thought."  
"Believe it," Leonard said. He opened the door.  
"Where are you going to run to, Leonard?" Xander asked approaching him. "Colorado? Texas? New York? You can travel as far as you want, but these visions are still going to find you. There are some things you can't run away from. And I think you know that."  
"This is where you give me the spiel that I have to fight for the good of the world. That what you're doing is right and I need to help. I don't care. I didn't ask for this; I don't want it." He opened the door again.  
"You think I did?" Wesley looked at Xander. There was an expression of pain on his face. "I've been doing this for seven years. I never asked to. I'm not qualified I just did it. I lost friends. People that I love. And I don't have any special powers to make me feel better. I'd much rather be married with a nice job in Normal, USA, but I'm here. You know why?" Xander didn't wait for a response. "Because someone has to be."  
"And I have to?"  
"You said you thought that God was sending you these visions. Why do you think that He did? Maybe He believes that somewhere in you is a person who is capable of doing this work."  
Wesley could tell from Leonard's expression that there was an immense turmoil going through him. His fear and the better angels of his nature were fighting and it was difficult to tell which would win.  
"It's like I told you earlier. I can't help you: I'm a coward. I'm not proud of it but it's true."  
"You're not a coward, Leonard. " Even though Xander was doing a far better job than expected, Wesley thought he could use the help. "You're just afraid. That's a huge difference and I think you know that."  
"There no shame in it," Xander said. "We're all afraid."  
The struggle in Leonard's face disappeared for a moment. "Bullshit! Don't give me that 'we're all scared' crap. If you were that frightened, you'd hide under the bed after you saw your first vampire!"  
"All right, maybe we're not as afraid as normal people are. But don't mistake us for Agent Smiths here. All of us are human." Realizing what he had said, Xander hurriedly added: "Except for Angel and Lorne. And even they get scared sometimes. You would have to be a machine not to be frightened of some of the things that are out there."  
"You know, if you're trying to persuade me to stay, you're doing a pretty poor job of it," Leonard said dryly. Wesley took this and that he wasn't facing the door anymore as good signs.  
"All right... But you're not a coward. You killed a Mohra demon without hesitation. From what I understand those are hard to take down even for professionals. That's takes a lot of guts for someone who is as timid as you supposedly are."  
"And that automatically makes me what? A warrior? A hero?" Leonard spoke as if he was trying to convince himself that it wasn't true.  
"It doesn't make you anything," Wesley said. "But it means that you have potential. In time maybe, with the proper training, you might become someone who can be a force for good." He could see that Leonard was right on the verge of changing his mind.  
"You said you came here because you wanted our help. Well part of helping is helping yourself." said Xander.  
There was a very long pause. Finally, Leonard looked at them. "All right."  
"Okay, you would be working with me--" Wesley began.  
"No. I'm not going to work here." He went on: "Don't get me wrong, I'll train with you. I'll tell you about whatever visions I get, but I'm not going to spend twenty-four hours a day doing this. I'm not going to let my work, no matter how important it may be, become my life." Before either could answer, he added: "That's the deal. Otherwise I'm out the door."  
Wesley was about to press the point when Xander spoke up. "You gotta place to work?"  
"A friend of mine runs a book store in Glendale. Murder Press." On their looks of incredulity, he said: "It's mostly mysteries. I've worked there part-time occasionally. He told me that I had a job there whenever I need it. I'd be comfortable there."  
Wesley figured this was about as much as he could expect."Do you have a number where we can reach you?"  
"I'm currently staying at the Rock Hudson Motor Lodge about ten miles from here. If you're serious about helping me, you could help me get a cheap apartment nearby. Nothing corporate, though," he added.  
"We can probably find something for you," Wesley said.  
"Thanks." There was an awkward silence for a moment. Finally Leonard spoke: "All right. Um, I guess I'll see you Monday.... evening?" At their hesitation, he added: "I prefer to begin work at the beginning of the week I don't want to come in Thursday and get a full weeks pay." He tried to smile.  
"I...guess that would be okay," Wesley said. "But you should understand, evil doesn't usually take weekends off."  
"I guess I'll get used to that." He turned to leave, then turned back. "By the way, here's a stupid question: When do you sleep?"  
Xander smiled. "You'll figure it out when you start working with us." He clapped Leonard on the back. "See you Monday."  
Leonard walked out the door, but this time Wesley was sure he would return.  
"I must say, Xander, that was a brilliant. I was sure he was gone," Wesley said admiringly.  
"Yeah. So now we've got another one."  
Wesley turned and looked at Xander. Whatever energy he had possessed when talking to Leonard was gone; he now seemed very tired. "What's wrong?"  
"Leonard is a very brave man. To have the courage to walk away from all this knowing the consequences, that takes guts. But now..." Xander shook his head. "He came here asking us to protect him and we've signed him up for a job that has death as one of the side effects."  
Wesley knew that Xander had been in a dark place for the past few weeks, but he hadn't thought that it was that bad. "If you're so down on what we're doing, why did you speak to him at all? "  
"Because we needed him. Because he's going to help us to fight what's next," Xander said. "Because that is what we do."  
Wesley didn't reply.  
"Come on, monarchy boy, you knew as well as I do that we weren't going to let Leonard disappear into thin air."  
Wesley didn't particularly want to admit that it was true, but he also knew that Xander was down. "Xander, do you really think that you should be working here if this bothers you so much?"  
"I have considered leaving."  
A look of shock crossed Wes's face. "There are construction companies that would hire me. There are other towns I could live in. But the problem's the same as it always is."  
"Which is?"  
"Somebody has to fight these things. I can't go from doing something that I've done for seven years to doing something completely different. Could you, Wes?"  
Wesley thought it over for a moment. He thought about the dark place that he had gone to after betraying Angel. It had been a chance to completely break away and start again. Yet despite his affair with Lilah, and all the darkness he had lived in, he had been drawn to helping people regardless. "I guess not," he finally admitted.  
"We are the champions. No time for losers, 'cause we are the champions," Xander quoted. "Fighting for good is in our blood. It's what we are. God help us." He walked away towards the elevator.  
Wesley thought about stopping him, telling him it would be worth it in the long run. The problem was he didn't know that it would. It was funny: the kid whose main strength had always been that of the clown had finally run out of jokes. And had touched on something very vital in him. In all of them.  
They were doing the right thing. It was worth it. Right?  
He hoped for all their sakes it was. -----

To Be Continued in Cookie Dough 3


End file.
